Starcraft 2nd dimension: Sons of War
by playa 69
Summary: Jim returned to earth to find it had fallen into ruin and war and now he must unite all humans under one banner to repel an incoming alien attack. this ff does not follow actual SC history. enjoy and please review DISCLAIMER: i do not own starcraft
1. 1,1: Hopeless Retreat, Armament

Chapter 1: Hopeless Retreat

Chapter 1: Hopeless Retreat

Part 1: Armament

The time is 3501. Earth is a battlefield. Man versus man, but the playing board was about to be changed completely.

Inside a giant flying barracks there were several rooms filled with machine arms.

A man walked into one of the rooms wearing orange pants with a serial code on it. The man walked into the middle of the room. He had shackles on his ankles but when he stepped onto a platform in the middle of the room, two mechanical arms rose out from beneath the platform and removed the shackles.

The platform then rose up and many different mechanical arms on the walls came to life and started piecing together a suit around the man. As the parts of the suit are placed on the man, huge bolts lock down into his skin, securing each piece of armor. Large handles that are attached to mechanical gloves are places on the man's hands.

"All marines prepare to drop," a woman's voice rang throughout the flying barracks. As this is said, the finishing touches are put onto the man's armor.

Large break-fall jet packs are built-into the armor. A small cigar holder is also bolted into the front of the suit. A lit cigar is then stuck into the man's mouth, who kindly obliges and starts smoking it.

A helmet is finally lowered down and melted onto the suit. The helmet had a visor that could be lowered to shield the marine from the outside or raised if it is not necessary.

Finally, an eight-millimeter c-fourteen gauss rifle is placed in the man's hands. A large door opened in front of the man, showing a huge hangar with hundreds of other marines in it. There were also several arclite siege tanks that looked like normal tanks except that they had two huge, menacing barrels that hid a much more deadly weapon.

There were even several goliath walkers. These walkers had two large backwards legs and had no head or arms, but the shoulders had huge machine guns and missile launchers mounted onto them.

The man walked into the doorway and blew out a small bit of smoke. Right before the man closed his visor, he gave one last comment, "Hell, it's about time."


	2. 1,2: Hopeless Retreat, Ambush

Chapter 1: Hopeless Retreat

Chapter 1: Hopeless Retreat

Part 2: Ambush

A dropship landed in a canyon. The drop doors opened and marines rushed out, expecting to see a raging battle, but they stopped when they realized that there were no targets. There was blood covering the entire canyon ground and walls. Guns and bullets littered the floor. A goliath stood right in the middle of the canyon, relatively untouched except for a hole in the cockpit. Oh, and blood covered that too. The ground was soft and sucked on the marines' feet.

Six more dropships arrived, the two in the back carried two goliaths each. Tychus along with some other marines from the barracks, came out of one of the dropships.

"Hey, we found something," a marine yelled.

Behind a rock, two marines found a tentacle, about ten feet long, covered in slime and fleshy. A bony spike stuck out of one end.

"What the hell is it?" one marines asked.

"It's an overlord tenta-" a marine was trying to say but the words stuck in his mouth, "Oh shit…"

A shadow loomed over the canyon. Not one, but two giant meat blobs floated in the sky. Tentacles protruded from the bottom of them, overlords.

Overlords were the food collectors of the mutant race. They snatched up marines and other people from the ground. The bony spikes on their tentacles could break into a dropship or a goliath or even a tank. The meat from the human bodies was turned into food for the hatcheries in a mutant breeding camp. The overlords had devices planted in them to control the swarms of mutants. Wherever there was an overlord, there was a mutant army. Which meant, the more overlords, the bigger the army.

As soon as the first tentacle snatched up a marine, guns rose to the sky and opened fire. Goliaths released hellfire missiles upon the overlords but tentacles blocked the missiles and then busted into the cockpits of the goliaths, snatching up the pilots themselves. Six of the dropships tried to take off but once in the air the tentacles retrieved the pilots and co-pilots for food. Without any pilots, the dropships fell to the ground and became too damaged to fly again. One dropship barely got its engines running when a tentacle got to it. But while the marines were looking up, something even deadlier lurked underneath them.

Suddenly, doglike creatures hopped out of the soft ground and stuck their long, bony claws into the marines. They pulled the marines under and came back up for more. The marines ran around frantically. Tychus hopped onto a rock to avoid getting caught by an underling. But bigger things were hiding in the ground other than the underlings. Lurkers also hid under the ground. Covered in spikes, they spiraled out of the ground and if one hook touched a marine, the marine would be pulled into the spiraling vortex of spikes and would either get pulled under, or torn into a lot of red chunks that would get splattered everywhere. With these three types of mutants all attacking the group of marines, their numbers were plummeting fast.

One underling shot out of the ground at Tychus, but he was ready. He had his rifle set to shotgun and blasted the underling back into the soft ground. Tychus could hear the automated cylinder inside his rifle rotate as it loaded another shell. He quickly switched to machine gun mode and blasted a tentacle that was coming at him at incredible speed. It flopped to the floor and the other half retracted back into the overlord.

Suddenly, a lurker jumped out of the ground, spinning in a deadly circle. Tychus ducked to the right, just barely avoiding the lurker's deadly spikes. One spike just barely scratched the surface of Tychus' visor.


	3. 1,3: Hopeless Retreat, Not a Rescue

Chapter 1: Hopeless Retreat

Chapter 1: Hopeless Retreat

Part 3: Not a Rescue

Tychus looked up at the sky and saw the overlords. It seemed impossible to win this fight. But then, it seemed like angels came down from heaven to save them. Missiles exploded at the side of one of the overlords. Wraith fighters flew by the overlords as the one that got blasted slowly began to fall out of the sky.

A huge laser appeared suddenly out of nowhere, zapping the second overlord. The laser disappeared and there was a sizzling crater where the laser had hit the overlord. The overlord started falling out of the sky much faster than the first one, mainly because it was already dead. The one that got hit by the Gemini missiles was still trying to stay in the air.

Tychus saw the dropship that hadn't taken off. An idea popped into his mind. He could probably fly that thing. It didn't fall like the others, it hadn't even taken off and the engines were already turned on. So he jumped off the rock and started sprinting for the dropship.

A few other marines got the same idea and were already at the drop door, signaling more marines to come over. About two dozen marines were left and more kept dieing as the underlings and lurkers came out of the ground.

Tychus got to the drop door and turned around, the last couple dozen marines were getting the idea and coming towards the dropship. But then, something else came out of the ground; hydralisks popped out of the ground, about three dozen of them. These monstrosities had huge oval heads with spikes at the top and a jaw that split into two. Instead of legs, hydralisks had a snake-like tail that propelled them forward. Hydralisks also had bony arms that had huge claws on the end, giving it a scythe-like shape. And to top it all off, their chests could open up and shoot deadly, two-to-three inch needle spines covered in acid.

Tychus lifted his visor up and spit out his cigar, then lowered it again. The hydralisks moved their arms out of the way and opened up their chests. Tychus took a kneeling position and steadied his gun. All at once, the dozens of hydralisks opened fire on the marines next to the dropship. Tychus and a few other marines also let out a barrage of bullets.

Several marines trying to get to the dropship soon dropped dead from countless number of hydralisk spines. Tychus soon got the idea and boarded the dropship. As he boarded, he started pulling acid-covered spines out of his armor. There were six other marines in the dropship; all of them had hydralisk spines sticking out of their armor.

Tychus and another marine entered the cockpit to check it out. There they found the co-pilot quivering in fear as he sat in the fetal position with a pistol.

"Looks like we found us a pilot," Tychus chuckled. He pulled out a spine that was almost through his visor and then lifted his visor, "you're gonna' get us the hell out of this canyon."

Tychus sat down in the co-pilot seat as the co-pilot sat down in the pilot seat. Underlings were trying to get onboard the ship but the five marines in the back were holding them off. Tychus looked out the broken, blood-splattered windshield and saw the hydralisks. They got a bit closer and opened their chests once again. Tychus grabbed the co-pilot and pulled him down as spines flew over their heads, killing the other marine that was standing there.

"Get us off the ground!" Tychus shouted as the overlord that got killed by the laser fell next to them.

The dropship started to rise and the spines could no longer reach the cockpit. Tychus and the pilot lifted their heads again and saw the overlord that got shot with the Gemini missiles falling right in front of them. They soon reached the top of the canyon and saw that the battle was a lot bigger than they had originally thought it was.

Huge battlecruisers made a neat line, and Tychus saw one that was turned facing the dropship. That was the one that used the laser to blast the overlord. As far as the eye could see, there was a mix of blue and brown. Blue was the armor of the UED and Tychus' faction. Hundreds of overlords were shooting down their tentacles, snatching up men from goliaths, siege tanks, and right out of bunkers.

But then, Tychus spotted something else.


	4. 1,4: Hopeless Retreat, No good Reason

Chapter 1: Hopeless Retreat

Part 4: No good Reason

Two flying mutants sped down the canyon, heading straight for the dropship Tychus was in. Mutalisks were the primary flyers for the mutant race. They had a 'C' shape to their body and two heads. The top head looked like a normal head with two eyes and even small nostrils. But the bottom head was basically just a mouth with a living worm in it. They spat huge acidic glaives called glaive wyrms out of their bottom mouth which could bounce off several targets.

The mutalisks spat their deadly glaive wyrms and flew by the dropship. One glaive wyrm missed but the other hit the side of the dropship dead on.

Tychus went back to the right holding side of the dropship to check on the other marines but found a huge hole in the wall and acid covering the opposite side of the hole.

Tychus then saw that the mutalisks had made a 'U' turn and were already on their way back. They shot their deadly glaive wyrms once again, and this time, both hit the cockpit of the dropship.

The dropship started going down back into the canyon, but Tychus was not going back down there. He took a leap of faith from about sixty feet. Luckily, he landed on the top of the canyon and his suit took all the fall damage.

Tychus turned around to examine the huge battle between the blue UED troops and the brown mutant creatures. Suddenly, an underling popped out of the ground and came down on Tychus.

Tychus raised his weapon and knocked the underling to the side with the butt of his rifle. The underling was not too happy about this, and made a loud screeching noise. Soon, several other underlings came to help their lone friend.

Tychus raised his rifle and started blasting away at them, but there were too many. He ran out of bullets and didn't have enough time to reload. The last underling jumped up at Tychus, who jumped to the side just in time and the underling fell into the canyon.

Tychus turned around and came face-to-face with a hydralisk. It stood ten feet tall with its chest open, showing hundreds of two inch long spines. The hydralisk stood about ten feet away, just out of reach of its huge scythe-hands.

Tychus jumped behind a rock just in time to avoid the large spines shooting past him. The hydralisk slithered up to the rock and swung its huge scythe-hand behind the rock. The sharp claw hit Tychus' helmet, but just barely scratched his face. Tychus pulled away and dodged a second swing. He switched his rifle to shotgun mode and ducked as another swing went over his head. He jumped under the hydralisk and stuck his rifle into the bottom of its jaw. Then, he pulled the trigger. The hydralisk's head flew in all directions as chunks of red flew everywhere.

Tychus stood up, quite proud of himself, but as he turned around again, an underling jumped out him just as he pulled the trigger again.


	5. 1,5: Hopeless Retreat, Falling City

Chapter 1: Hopeless Retreat

Part 5: Falling City

Far from the battle on the ground, several large buildings were trying to escape. One was a large rectangular building, which was the barracks. There were two half-spherical building also floating away from the chaos. These two buildings were larger than the barracks and had satellites on them. These were the command centers. And there was one giant platform with huge engines on the bottom. On top of this platform sat an entire city with a single tower shooting upwards in the middle of the city. An invisible protective dome encased the city and gun turrets lined the sides.

But these would be little help against the swarms of flying mutants heading towards the flying city. Mutalisks came in first and began bombarding the sides of the platform. The few mutalisks that accidentally flew into the invisible shield were incinerated instantly. Gun turrets had a hard time locking onto the fast moving mutalisks, so the city sent some extra guns. Iris portals opened up all along the platform and wraith fighters shot out of them. The wraiths then began deadly dogfights against the swarms of mutalisks. A second wave of human reinforcements came when larger iris portals opened and valkyrie fighter frigates came out. These frigates were much larger than wraiths and slower. They had huge holding pods which held thousands of rockets. Valkyries were inaccurate yet devastated large numbers of enemy fighters all at the same time.

The valkyries soon started clearing the sky, but a larger force of mutalisks came, including some support. The support was a group of devourers. Devourers were like giant, overgrown mutalisks with harder carapaces and larger wings. They were slow and often clumsy but they packed a punch against enemy air forces. They shot purple slime instead of the normal glaive wyrms. This purple, acid-like material slowly melted through ship armor and clogged engines and weapons systems. It was also heavy and given enough of it, it could drag down any size ship.

The devourers shot their purple slime at the wraiths but they were too fast. They then set their sights on the slower, more vulnerable valkyries. At first, it seemed like the valkyries were going to win against the devourers, but they started slowing in their attack. Missiles began launching three at a time, then two at a time, then one by one. The acid slime had clogged most of the valkyries' weapons systems and engines. The valkyries were even slower now and they couldn't even attack.

Mutalisks soon chewed up the defenseless valkyries and then overcame the wraiths as well. They then resumed destroying the walls of the giant platform. The devourers began spitting their acidic slime into the giant engines in the bottom of the platform.

Soon, the platform had taken too much damage and lost its shielding capability, leaving it vulnerable to the mutalisks. But suddenly, hundreds of missiles shot out in every direction from the city. Mutalisks that were caught in the firing line were instantly fried. The missiles came from goliath walkers that were stationed throughout the city.

The mutalisks, for some reason, paid little attention to the goliaths. They simply made a large sphere out of their bodies and moved into the city. Goliaths shot at the sphere of mutalisks but the mutalisks were determined to protect something.

The reason was soon clear. The mutalisks allowed an opening in the bottom of the sphere and small globs of green slime fell from the inside of the sphere. The globs hit the city streets and dissipated. Out of the green globs of slime rose hydralisks and underlings. The twin guns the goliaths possessed were little use against the swarms of hydralisks and rush of underlings. More spheres made out of mutalisks entered the city and dropped the same cargo.

Inside each sphere were several overlords. The creatures they carried crawled out of pores on their bodies and the green slime acted as a protective gel when they hit the ground.

The overlords got the creatures inside of them by gently picking up their cargo with their tentacles and letting them dig back into the pores which led to the inside of the overlord.

The city also had arclite siege tanks in it and plenty of marines, but the siege tanks couldn't go into 'siege mode' inside the city because the damage to the city itself would be too much. Siege mode made a tank cling to the ground and activate a large artillery cannon. So the tank sacrificed it's mobility for the sake of pure power.

By now the barracks and two command centers were destroyed. Soon, the city was overrun with mutant ground forces. The tower in the middle of the city collapsed and almost all the engines were destroyed. The overlords loaded up their precious cargo and set off with the devourers and the mass of the mutalisks force. A small group of mutalisks were left behind to intercept any escape shuttles.

Unknown to the mutants and the few that were still alive on the doomed platform, a large force off behemoth class mark II battlecrusers watched from afar. Battlecruisers were gigantic flying aircraft that had a hammerhead and six primary engines, one on each giant wing and four in the back.

The city soon crashed into the barren land and exploded with deadly force. Soon, the few mutalisks that stuck around left as well.

"Should I send a search party to look for survivors, sir?" inside the lead battlecruiser stood an old man with a sword. He watched the battle through a screen that showed the outside, next to him stood a ghost agent, also watching the battle. The voice came from a speaker in the room. The person who asked the question was a man's voice, probably the commodore of the ship.

"There's no need commodore," The old man said, "we were too late, this battle is lost. Turn the fleet around and return to the capital."

"Yes, sir,"

With that, all the battlecruisers in the fleet began turning around, abandoning the ruins of a once great city. This day belonged to the Science Federation and their mutant puppets.


	6. 2,1: History Lesson, Redemption

Chapter 1: Hopeless Retreat

Chapter 2: History Lesson

Part 1: Redemption

A vulture speeder zoomed through the deep, dark canyon. It was nearly pitch black inside the canyon except for the lights on the vulture.

The vulture soon slowed to a stop and three landing pegs came out of it. The engine shut off and the man who was driving came out.

It was an old man, perhaps in his forties or fifties. He wore no armor and he carried a very old antique rifle that had duct tape and extra parts all over it. The man examined the area and saw a few goliaths and dropships in the canyon. Blood decorated the floor and walls and the drivers of the goliaths and dropships were long gone.

The man heard something behind him and quickly turned to leave. He entered his vulture and tried to turn it on, but his vulture wasn't listening.

The engine started up and died again almost instantly. The man tried again and got the same thing. One last desperate attempt and the engine came to life. The vulture lifted up off the ground and the landing pegs retracted back into the vulture.

The vulture made a one hundred eighty degree turn, thus letting some of its headlights reveal dozens of underlings sitting against the canyon wall. After the vulture made the full turn the underlings jumped from their hiding place. The vulture sped off and sparks flew as small, bony claws ripped at the side of the vulture.

At the top of the canyon there was a small camp of about twenty people. Among them were several who were wearing bandages and missing limbs. Among these survivors was Tychus Findlay. He got away relatively unharmed except for an underling claw that ripped through his gut and a slight concussion.

The ones who were not harmed didn't wear any armor but still bore the color red. The camp had two large tents and several smaller tents, all around a large bonfire.

Most of the people there were men, but there was one woman. She had blonde hair and green eyes. She wore a ghost suit (which also bore the color red) and carried a very large sniper/canister rifle that shot piercing and tracking shells. It also had an option to shoot explosive canisters.

Soon, three vultures arrived at the camp. They carried a sack full of parts, perhaps salvaged from the many broken down machines in the battlefield. There was a long line of fallen battlecruisers, each one several miles apart.

Another vulture arrived to the camp, but this vulture was beat up and damaged. It was the old man. He shut his vulture off and walked over to where the female ghost was sitting.

The ghost was sitting down next to Tychus and talking, no, flirting with him. The old man arrived and the ghost turned to greet him.

"Hey, Jim," the ghost screamed in joy, "Looky what I found! He's cute, can we keep him?"

"Sure," Jim said, "whatever, now scram somewhere, let me talk to him."

The girl complied and left Tychus and Jim alone. Jim sat down where the girl had been seated just a few seconds ago.

"I see you've met Nova," Jim said.

"Does she have a last name?" Tychus asked.

"Her full name is November Annabella Terra," Jim said, "We call her Nova, for short."

"What is this?" Tychus said, "Why'd you come down here?"

"We came looking for new parts and possibly some survivors we could convince to join us."

"And if I don't want to join?"

"Then we'll leave you here to die,"

"Do I get dental if I join?"

"Surprisingly, no, I'm the leader and I still don't get dental! Everyone's pretty much equal here."

"Hm, I think I'll join."

"Good, get some rest, we leave in a few hours."

And just as Jim promised, several hours later, two dropships arrived, one for the original party and salvaged equipment, and one for Jim, Nova and the survivors.

The plan seemed to be coming together quite nicely for the group, but after a few seconds in the air, several mutalisks came from behind.

"We got enemy hostiles on our six," the pilot said.

Jim unbuckled himself and went to the back of the dropship. He pressed some buttons and the wall began to lift up, revealing two consoles.

"I need someone who can man a turret," Jim said as he manned the left console.

No one volunteered except for Nova.

"I can," Nova said.

"No, Nova," Jim said, "You can't man a turret for shit."

Nova sat back down and Tychus unbuckled himself. He could remember he was the top of his unit at manning a turret, so he went to the back and manned the second console.

The controls were alien to Tychus, for he had never heard of gun turrets mounted onto a dropship before, but he liked the idea. The screen showed several targets moving around. Aiming was tricky, and Tychus didn't see a lock-on button.

"Hey," Tychus called, "how do I lock on?"

"There's no lock-on," Jim replied, "Just shoot at the targets and hope you hit something."

Tychus pulled on the triggers and felt the bullets leaving the dropship. This turret was a machine gun with two large barrels that fired forty millimeter rounds at two hundred fifty thousand rpm. Jim's turret was also a machine gun, but his shot thirty five millimeter rounds at three hundred twenty thousand rpm.

The bullets soared through the air, but with no lock-on, few of them met their mark. Tychus was unfamiliar to the new aiming system and many of his bullets didn't come close to a mutalisk. Luckily they did not have to hit the mutalisk directly, the rounds had special sensors in them that made them explode when heat was detected nearby.

Jim was hitting most of the targets and Tychus finally managed to clip one of the wings off a mutalisk. Finally, one of the glaive wyrms from the mutalisks hit the back of the dropship, taking out Jim's gun.

There was one mutalisk left, and Tychus was running low on ammo. Luckily, Tychus managed to put a few holes into the left wing of the mutalisk. The mutalisk slowly started falling, flapping its wings madly, and trying to stay up. Eventually, it disappeared to the surface.

Cheers came around the inside of the dropship and Jim gave Tychus a pat on the back. Tychus smiled, feeling welcome; his old unit always treated each other like shit, including him. But most of the marines in his unit were convicts and it was this or the electric chair.

Tychus left the seat of the console and buckled himself back into his original seat as the two dropships left Earth and headed into space.


	7. 2,2: History Lesson, The Ride

Chapter 2: History Lesson

Chapter 2: History Lesson

Part 2: The Ride

The dropships sped through open space towards their destination. After exiting the atmosphere, the ride had become much smoother. Tychus was sitting in a corner by himself. Most of the others were still strapped into their seats, some were talking. Nova had gone to the other side of the dropship which was empty. Jim walked over to Tychus and sat down with him.

"That was some marksmanship you showed back there," Jim said.

"I only got two," Tychus said.

"We'd all be dead right now if you hadn't gotten that two," Jim said.

Tychus simply smiled.

"You wanna' know what happened to us and how we got here?" Jim asked.

Tychus looked up, still not saying anything.

"Well it started quite some time ago," Jim assumed Tychus' silence was a 'yes', "back in the twenty-fifth century, nearly one thousand years ago, the world was overpopulated and fossil fuels had long since been burned out. Humanity couldn't survive on natural resources for much longer, so the world's top scientists built the greatest space fleet imaginable, at that time.

"Twenty behemoth class mark I battlecruisers and a sizable force of low tech fighters and dropships. They entered what is now known as 'hyper space' which was recently discovered back then. As you already know, hyper space allows entire fleets to move faster than the speed of light.

"They were supposed to stop at a planet called Sara but something happened to the hyper space engine. The fleet continued on into deep space and almost exited the Milky Way. They finally stopped at the edge of the galaxy in two separate areas. One planet, where four battlecruisers had crashed, was named Mar Sara, after the original planet they were aiming for. The second planet had twelve battlecruisers crashed onto it. This second planet was named Korhal and was the more advanced planet. Mar Sara was naturally wasteland with little vegetation. Korhal was a planet much like Earth in the twentieth century, except it was greener.

"The other battlecruisers were never seen again; some believe that those four remaining battlecruisers are still traveling as we speak. Others say they were incinerated upon exiting hyper space. War broke out between Mar Sara and Korhal. The inhabitants of Mar Sara just happened to find a secondary planet before the people of Korhal. This new planet was soon terraformed to fit humans. They called this planet Antiga Prime. Antiga Prime was a small planet that had never ending lightning storms.

"Antiga Prime was also the first planet to become infected with the alien race known as Zerg. The planet was doomed and all humans decided to join together against the Zerg. But the humans arrived to a burning Antiga Prime. The planet was left lifeless and uninhabitable. The humans looked to who did this and found the Protoss. The Protoss were advanced, humanoid creatures with incredible psionic abilities that surpassed any ghost.

"The humans fought the Protoss for some time before both sides realized that they had a common enemy, the Zerg. The humans and protoss joined together to fight the Zerg for years to come, but something happened.

"The protoss home planet Auir was overrun along with Korhal, Mar Sara, and other planets inhabited by humans and protoss. In one last desperate attempt, the two remaining leaders of the protoss let out a burst of energy using millions of pylons, or power cells. A small group of humans, including myself, managed to escape through a gateway back to Earth.

"But when we arrived, the UED attacked us and we were forced to flee back into space and colonize for ourselves. Ever since then, we've been flying to Earth and back salvaging what we can."

"But how do you get to the surface with the space grid up?" Tychus asked.

"We brought along some technologies from the outer rim of the Milky Way. One is a type of 'ion cannon' that is mainly used to momentarily cripple enemy fleets and defenses. We shoot it off once and that creates a fairly large gap in the defense grid. Defense platforms can take weeks to fix, that is, if they don't fall to the surface and blow up. But we have to be in and out before the UED sends a fleet to cover the gap or the Science Federation sends their mutalisks to patrol the gap.

"It's very likely that the mutalisks we shot down back there were the first of a swarm of mutalisks that were sent to patrol the opening."

"But that area is under the control of the UED." Tychus stated.

"Not anymore. We fired the ion cannon expecting a routine salvage run, but a battle ensued almost immediately after the space defenses were fried. The UED base in the area was overrun and destroyed, probably because they had no support from space anymore. The Science Federation is probably giggling over its achievement and stationing new defense platforms as we speak."

"How'd you guys find me?" Tychus asked after a moment of silence.

"Nova found you under an underling. She could still sense your thoughts and knew you were still alive, although your left lung was pretty torn up and you were at the brink of death."

"How big of a fleet do you have?" Tychus asked after another moment of silence.

"We've got twenty one fully equipped and fully loaded behemoth class mark II battlecruisers and one newly finished behemoth class mark III battlecruiser. I named her Hyperion, she's the pride and joy of our little rebellion. We stole the blueprints from the Science Federation during a salvage run, we're not sure if the Science Federation has completed any of them yet."

"Why wouldn't they?"

"They've been too busy with upgrading their mutants to be more like the Zerg."

"What do you mean 'more like the Zerg'?"

"Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you more details. Somehow, a DNA sample of the Zerg reached Earth and the UED tucked it away. A group of rebels stole the sample and began mutating earth worms into Zerg-like creatures. This rebel group became the Science Federation. Zerg and mutants are almost exactly alike, except mutants are smaller and weaker than Zerg."

"How many people are up here in space?" Tychus asked.

"Our population has been growing rapidly since we got here, and now it's reached an estimated two million."

Tychus now knew why the rebels were hiding in space; they wouldn't stand a chance against the UED. The UED had an estimated civilian population of one hundred twenty six million and a military population of about ten million.

"We're here, sir," the pilot said.

"Come with me," Jim motioned for Tychus to stand up with him.

Tychus and Jim both walked into the cockpit of the dropship and looked out the windshield. Tychus was amazed by what he saw. An entire city in space; the city sat on a platform much like the one Tychus had been stationed in before the Science Federation attacked.

To the side of the city stood a fleet of twenty-two battlecruisers, one of which caught Tychus' eye immediately. This particular battlecruiser was about twice as large as the others and across its huge hammerhead read the name, 'Hyperion'. The entire thing was lined with laser turrets, missile turrets, and laser batteries (for battlecruiser versus battlecruiser). In the front of the battlecruiser was something Tychus had never seen before on a battlecruiser. There was a huge gaping hole where the normal small hole was supposed to be. If one shot from a mark II could bring down a single overlord, imagine what a single shot from a mark III could do.

"I hope you'll have a good time being on the rebel side, Tychus." Jim patted Tychus on the back and left to see what Nova was doing.


	8. 2,3: History Lesson, The Restaurant

Chapter 1: History Lesson

Chapter 2: History Lesson

Part 3: The Restaurant

The two dropships that came from Earth had landed inside the platform holding the city in space. All the survivors that were found on the surface had undergone a mental rehabilitation to ensure that they wouldn't turn on the other rebels. After that was finished, Tychus was given a room in an apartment complex, and a job as a taxi driver in a hovercraft.

After just one week of driving a hovercraft all over Rapture (the name of the city), Tychus had memorized every street and building number. One faithful night (since there is no real time in space, the architects of Rapture developed a system of lights that simulated when it was day, and when it was night), Tychus was having bad business when someone entered his taxi.

"Where to," Tychus asked.

"Babylon Six on Livernois Road, two-twelve," the voice of the man was familiar.

"Jim?" Tychus turned around, and sure enough, Jim Raynor was sitting in his back seat.

"Oh," Jim smiled, "Tychus, good to see you again."

"Same," Tychus turned back around and took the hovercraft out of park, "I still have a lot of questions to ask you. I went to the library of Rapture, but the archives were incomplete and lacked a lot of information."

"Alright," Jim said, "Maybe you could join me in Babylon, I could use some company."

"What did you mean back on the dropship when you said, 'the two remaining protoss leaders,' was there more?" Tychus started asking immediately.

"Yes," Jim said, "there used to be three, but one betrayed us and let Kerrigan get past our defenses."

"Who's Kerrigan?"

"She was a ghost. But she was better than the other ghosts. She was one of our greatest soldiers, but the Overmind recognized this."

"What's the 'Overmind'?"

"A brain-like entity that juts out of the surface of a planet known as 'Char'. Listen, why don't I just start from the beginning?"

"ok,"

"A man named 'Angus Mengsk' was the original commander of the space expedition to Sara. He was inside a battlecruiser that landed on Mar Sara. He led his people back into space and discovered the planet Antiga Prime. Right before he died of old age, Mengsk had some of his DNA removed and placed in various stasis cells. Over the time of dozens of years, the DNA samples grew and grew. Most of them grew into hideous monstrosities and the scientists who ran the experiment had to terminate the failed creature. Long after the humans and protoss formed an alliance, one DNA sample reached perfection. The baby that floated in the stasis cell was exactly like Angus, and it was crowned ruler of Mar Sara before it ever opened its eyes.

"They named this baby boy 'Arcturus Mengsk' after his 'father'. The child grew to become a great leader, but also a deceitful one. I fell under his personal ranks and grew to second in command. But then the Overmind's minions overcame the defenses at New New Gettysburg and destroyed the base there. Mengsk could've saved everybody down there, but he didn't. He just sat, and watched. The worst part is that Sarah Kerrigan was down there."

"We're here," Tychus parked the hovercraft and turned it off.

The two men came out of the hovercraft and entered Babylon Six, a diner restaurant that didn't look like it was having very good business that night. Jim picked a seat next to the window and they both sat down. A waitress walked over and asked what they wanted to order.

"I'll have the double steak combo with a side of green beans and onions," Tychus said while looking at the menu.

"Gimme' a stack of five blueberry pancakes with some scrambled eggs and some sausages," Jim had apparently been here before because he didn't even touch his menu.

"Anything to drink?" the waitress asked.

"A beer will do," Tychus said.

"I'll have an iced green tea," Jim said.

"Coming right up," The waitress walked to the other side of the diner.

Of course, cows, pigs, blueberries, green beans, onions, and chickens were all extinct. All the food is crafted to look like steak, scrambled eggs, and all the other stuff. The food is also artificially flavored and the taste is spot on. But hops was still grown in the city and used to make real beer.

"As I was saying," Jim started, "Sarah Kerrigan was taken to the Overmind and placed inside some kind of cocoon. Inside the cocoon, she was morphed and changed into something completely different from the original Kerrigan. She came out as a green-skinned, carapace-covered Zerg. She still resembled humans but she had two dorsal spines, or wings, that could slice through battlecruiser armor like butter. She also gained special powers that were only available to the protoss and Zerg alike. She could use her psionic powers to call forth a deadly lightning storm or throw a sticky green web that would slow down or stop whatever it hit.

"Arcturus feared that with Kerrigan on the Overmind's side, the war was lost, so he fled with a large amount of battlecruisers and fighters, back to Earth. The humans who remained fought for some time longer, but the Overmind's slow yet steady attacks were slowly chewing up the defenses around each planet.

"I guess Kerrigan finally grew tired of the Overmind's slow progress and killed it with her own hands. She then took control of the Zerg completely and consumed the outer planets of the Koprulu sector, that's the section of space where Antiga Prime, Auir, Mar Sara, Korhal, and all the other planets that were under our control were.

"At the time of need, one of the three protoss leaders betrayed his own kind and took a third of the protoss with him. He left, leaving Auir and Mar Sara completely vulnerable to attack. To this day, nobody knows why that Protoss leader just left like that."

"Who were the three Protoss leaders?" Tychus asked as the waitress dropped off the food.

"There was Raszagal, the matriarch, Zeratul, the prelate, and Edullon, the patriarch."

"Which one was the traitor?"

"Edullon, he was the youngest to ever be elected as patriarch, and until him, there had always been one patriarch or matriarch and then a single prelate. The protoss considered him a prodigy."

"How old could the protoss get?"

"Well, one year for them is like ten years for us, so we have a relatively short life span compared to them. Matriarchs and patriarchs have a relatively high life expectancy of near one thousand."

"Do you know how long the protoss had been fighting the Zerg before you arrived?"

"It isn't recorded in protoss or human records when the war first started, all we know is that it started millions, possibly billions of years ago."

"Did the Protoss have a religion?"

"Yes, they do. It's a very old religion and just about every single Protoss follows it. They called it the 'Khalan Way'. See, a long time ago, before the war between Protoss and Zerg first started, there was an ancient civilization called the Khala. From Khalan records we learned that there was one 'God' race called the Xel'Naga. It was the Xel'Naga that created the Khala and made the Khala turn on each other. The Khala had no way to reproduce so they died out pretty quick and left a lot of technology to the protoss.

"The Protoss were also created by the Xel'Naga, but the Xel'Naga thought the protoss were too weak to survive, so they abandoned them early on. But the Protoss harnessed Khalan technologies and grew stronger while the Xel'Naga are believed to have created the Zerg on a distant planet called Zerus which is now known as Char.

"Well, it looks like we're both done eating, so let's continue this conversation on the way back to HQ."

"There's an HQ in Rapture?" Tychus was confused, he never heard of a headquarters in Rapture.

"Yeah," Jim stated, "it's called 'my apartment', waitress, check please."

So Jim continued to tell Tychus information about the Protoss and Zerg and the history of the rebels and how they used to be called the 'Dominion'. Once they arrived at Jim's apartment complex, Tychus drove off to his apartment.

Tychus had only finished half his beer that night so he was quite sober while driving. He found this strange because he used to love drinking; it must've had something to do with the mental rehabilitation chair he sat in for five minutes. A helmet had fried his brain and now he thought that his beloved UED was a pile of shit with a bunch of guns. But he still felt the same way about the Science Federation.

Suddenly, something hit Tychus. He remembered that the leader of the UED was a man named 'Arcturus Mengsk'. It must've been the same person Jim had been talking about.

Mengsk had arrived in a large space fleet that easily overpowered the space defenses. He assassinated the UED leader and took the thrown for himself. He must've been the one who brought the Zerg DNA to Earth and the one who brought the technology of goliaths, tanks, vultures, marine suits and all the other advanced technologies to Earth. The people on Earth knew of battlecruisers, wraiths, and dropships but that was all, and those versions were old and out of date.

Tychus stopped the taxi and was about to turn back around to inform Jim, but he stopped when he realized that Jim must've already known and thought that he would have realized this the second Jim told him about Arcturus.

So Tychus drove on to his apartment, all the while pondering his thoughts.


	9. 3,1: Rapture, The Ghost

Chapter 3: Rapture

Chapter 3: Rapture

Part 1: The Ghost

The hangar was dark and quiet. Hundreds of wraiths sat peacefully upon racks that all led to an ejection station. Silently, ripples moved through the air from wraith to wraith. Soon, the ripples had gone to each wraith and done its job. The ghost was on the way out when the doors in front of it opened. Several marines in full armor stood there with their weapons aimed right at the ghost.

The ghost readied her rifle but then she noticed that the marines were not shooting; slowly, one marine moved forward, completely oblivious to the ghost's presence. The ghost knew full well that one movement could give her away, so she just stood there, hoping the marine in front wouldn't bump into her.

The ghost let out a silent sigh as the marines were about to turn back, but then something she hadn't suspected happened. Her suit ran out of power and couldn't sustain the cloaking field. She became as clear as daylight and the marines opened fire. The ghost leapt to the side, dodging the flying bullets.

Edward Jimenez was the captain of the group of marines but he didn't want to lead his men into the hangar, so he made them lead themselves.

"Go," Edward motioned with his hands for the first line of marines to move on.

The front three marines complied and moved down the hall to the door where the ghost was standing. Just as they reached the door, an explosion blew them to the side.

"Don't just stand there," Edward motioned for the second line of marines to move, "go."

The next three marines complied and moved down the hall. They reached the hangar and the lead one was shot through the helmet while the other two found cover and started blind firing.

"You're up next," Edward motioned for the final line of marines to move up, "go."

The final three marines moved to where the two marines from the second line were and took cover next to them. Finally, Edward himself moved up and grabbed some cover. The marines were still blind firing but the ghost was waiting for an opening. Edward pulled out a camera and held it around the corner of his cover. He couldn't see anything and assumed that if the ghost were still there she would've shot the camera. But Edward didn't want to put his own ass on the line so he sent one of his men.

"Charlie," Edward commanded, "move to that wraith over there, we'll cover you, cover fire!"

Five marines including Edward opened blind fire on wherever they thought the ghost was while the sixth marine sprinted across half the hangar to reach a docked wraith.

Charlie made it to the wraith and Edward gave the command to cease-fire. Edward knew that cover fire from just five marines wasn't shit, so if the ghost were still there, she would have taken the shot at Charlie.

"Alright," Edward ordered, "he's gone, exit cover."

The six marines left their cover but were nervous that one of them was going to get shot in the head. But just as Edward suspected, no one was shot.

"Dominique," Edward ordered, "sound the alarm and contact someone about this."

"Sir," a marine said, "Dominique is dead."

"Well then you do it,"

Hours later, Edward was watching some security footage of the ghost. He saw ripples in the air here and there but not enough to guess what the ghost was doing. Suddenly, Edward noticed something and stopped the footage. He stopped right where the ghost was leaping to the side. The ghost had a chest, and a quite sizable one.

'Shit,' Edward thought to himself, 'we got our asses handed to us by a chick.'

The next day, Edward and the rest of his men were in the locker room with another unit of marines. There were virtually no female marines and very few female ghosts. Even most of the medics were men, so this meant that there was no women's locker room, thus the girls had to use the men's locker room.

Just then, while Edward was having a conversation with one of his men, a girl walked into the locker room. She wore nothing but a towel at her waist and her chest was completely uncovered. Her hair was red and down to the middle of her back. She was wet, which meant she had just come from the showers.

The men in the room whistled and wooed at her, but she just smiled and waved at them. But Edward was thinking of something else. He was thinking of the ghost that had killed four of his men yesterday.

The girl walked over to her locker and started to dress. But before she could dress herself up, she had to remove her towel. Once she did that, cheers rang throughout the locker room. But the girl simply put on her clothes, smiling, as if completely oblivious to the wooing men around her that were trying to get her to talk to them. After the ghost had dressed herself, she left the locker room.

"Damn," one of the marines said, "I'd like to bite off a piece of that ass."

"Are you saying you want to go ass-to-mouth with her?" another marine looked disgusted.

"What's wrong with ass-to-mouth?" the first marine asked.

"It's wrong and disgusting," another marine from Edward's unit said.

"So none of you guys would go ass-to-mouth with a girl like that?" the first marine argued.

"I would," a different marine said, "I'll do anything-to-mouth with that girl."

"Yeah," some men around the room cheered.

This sparked an argument about ass-to-mouth and other sexual things between the marines. Edward hurried up and got dressed then left the room, afraid that the other marines' stupidity was contagious.

Edward was eating lunch the next day by himself since all his friends were either dead or seeing a movie. Just as he was half way done with his steak, the girl from the locker room sat down across from him.

"Hiya," the girl said, "name's Elizabeth Stewart but everyone calls me Liz. What's your name?"

Elizabeth had the sweetest voice Edward had ever heard from someone with such a perfect body and beautiful face. For a second he thought he was disrespecting her for being in her line of sight.

"Edward Jimenez," Edward finally said, "My friends call me Ed."

"You're not like the others," Elizabeth said, "You just sat there while everyone else was trying to get with me. Are you gay?"

"Straight to the point huh?" Edward chuckled, "no I'm not gay. It's just that I lost some friends the other night."

"Oh," Elizabeth made a sad face that could have fooled Edward any day of the week, "I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

"Enough about that," Edward tried to keep things cheery, "you new here?"

"Yup," Elizabeth went back to her gorgeous smile, "I graduated from Rapture Ghost Academy a few days ago."

"So that means you can read my mind?" Edward said amusingly.

"If I had to, yeah," Elizabeth said, "but I don't want to. I think ghosts shouldn't read peoples' thoughts just because they can, people deserve to have privacy."

"You're a good person, Liz," Edward said, but he was still suspicious that Liz was the one from the other night, "have you gotten to kill anything yet?"

"Uh," Elizabeth's smile faded away. She turned pale and her pupils widened, "I'm sorry, I have to go."

"Wait, I didn't mean to offend you," Edward tried to stop her from leaving but it was too late. Liz was already half way across the mess hall.

"Hey," a voice came from behind Edward.

Edward turned around to see Tychus Findlay standing there with a plate of food. Tychus sat down and started eating.

"So, who was that?" Tychus asked.

Edward and Tychus had only just met a few days ago and had already become good friends.

"Her name's Elizabeth," Edward said.

"She's cute," Tychus said as if he didn't care much.

"You don't think she's hot?" Edward asked.

"Well," Tychus stopped, "I don't want to use such a word for a girl that looks as innocent as she does, but yeah, she's hot."

Edward simply sighed and left to turn in his tray which still had a half eaten steak on it.

"Hey," Tychus called, "you just gonna' leave me here to eat by myself?"

"I'll see you later," was Edward's reply.


	10. 3,2: Rapture, Rapture's Defense

Chapter 3: Rapture

Chapter 3: Rapture

Part 2: Rapture's Defense

Edward had four new men under his control but nothing could replace the original. He felt guilty for sending in his men first. Edward was patrolling the area near a docking bay when the alarm sounded.

Marines rushed to the source of the alarm. Dozens of squads, including one with Tychus, made it to docking bay six to find that it was just a rebel dropship. For a moment, everyone relaxed but then the drop doors on the dropship opened up and three ghosts came out.

Everyone tensed up and raised their weapons, because the unit of ghosts was wearing blue, which signaled UED. The marines opened fire but the ghosts disappeared into thin air and the bullets hit the giant metal ramp the ghosts were standing on.

"Fan out," Edward ordered, "Get a detector up here."

Soon, the detector had arrived but it showed no signs of the ghosts. Instead, it sensed something in the dropship. The marines moved slowly forward towards the dropship. Edward's unit was sent in first.

As the ten marines entered the empty dropship, the other hundred was still watching out for ripples in the air. On board Edward found a horrifying item. A long-range tracker device was planted on board and it was turned on, full-blast.

Rapture was in an uproar within minutes. People fled their homes to get to a dropship that would take them away from the doomed city. Jim rallied up all his forces to get ready for a. imminent attack while some forces remained in Rapture to search for the three missing ghosts.

Two more behemoth class mark II battlecruisers were finished in time to add to the defensive line. Dozens of small platforms carried large guns and encircled Rapture, much like the defense matrix protecting Earth, except smaller. From here, the rebels waited.

Several hours after the panic had died down; the first signs of the enemy were seen in the distance. Tattered, beat up dropships that bore the color red came from Earth. The defenses allowed the dropships to pass since they bore the color of the rebels. It wasn't until the dropships did not slow down when they neared Rapture did Jim give the order to destroy the dropships.

Missiles and lasers shot out at the dropships, but it was too late. While some were destroyed, most rammed right into the platform carrying Rapture and exploded; the dropships must have carried high explosives on board. Not an hour after that, mark II battlecruisers that bore the color of blue arrived.

"So it begins," Jim said, "Once in range, fire our main cannon at the lead battlecruiser. Let's see what this baby can do."

Almost immediately after Jim ordered the fire at will command, the front of the Hyperion glowed bright red. A giant laser beam shot outward and hit the lead UED battlecruiser right on the hammerhead. The hammerhead of the hit battlecruiser instantly exploded. Soon after that, secondary explosions went up the neck of the doomed battlecruiser and quickly destroyed the entire ship.

"How long is the cool down?" Jim asked.

"Longer than expected sir," an officer on board the bridge said, "the estimated five minutes isn't enough, it'll take at least fifteen minutes to fire again."

"Incoming wraiths," someone said.

Hundreds of wraiths unloaded their Gemini missiles into the Hyperion and flew right by it. But the Hyperion stood, unscathed by the several hundred missiles that just hit its hammerhead.

"Should we deploy our own fighters, sir?"

"No," Jim said, "deploy the ones that are sitting in Rapture, save the Hyperion's wraiths for later."

Just as Jim ordered, hundreds of rebel wraiths were sent into the battle from Rapture. But then something unexpected happened. As the last wraith left Rapture, an evil grin landed on the face of a girl, a girl with red hair. Suddenly, every single rebel wraith in space detonated and exploded with deadly force.

"What the hell just happened?" Jim demanded.

"Someone must've planted explosives on our wraiths,"

"Launch the wraiths from the battlecruisers," Jim ordered.

Wraiths ejected from the Hyperion and its fellow battlecruisers to engage in dog fights with the UED wraiths. The UED battlecruisers were now uncomfortably close and the rebel battlecruisers started firing their cannons. The UED battlecruisers ignored the deadly barrage of red light as they focused on getting right next to the rebel battlecruisers.

"What the hell," Jim said as two battlecruisers got on each side of the Hyperion.

There were no turrets mounted onto these battlecruisers, instead, hundreds of battery ports opened up on the sides of the UED battlecruisers. It was clear now what the UED was trying to do. Each battlecruiser was custom designed to engage in close range combat against other capital ships. The batteries took up the power needed to fire the main cannon so the UED could not use them.

"Arm all port and starboard batteries," Jim ordered, "fire at will!"

The two battlecruisers bombarded the sides of the Hyperion, but the Hyperion was tougher than that. Soon, both UED battlecruisers were torn to shreds by the massive port and starboard batteries on board the Hyperion.

"Double back to assist the other battlecruisers," Jim ordered.

"Sir," a panicked young officer called, "Science Federation warships are on sensor."

"What," Jim shouted, "how?"

"They have a dozen behemoth class mark II battlecruisers and three behemoth class mark III battlecruisers."

"Shit," Jim shouted, "aim our cannon at the lead mark III battlecruiser and fire the prototype weapon."

"The prototype isn't ready, sir," an officer said, "It could fry our systems or backfire."

"It's a risk we'll have to take," Jim said.

"Preparing to fire the prototype weapon," an older officer said.

The Hyperion had now turned to see a group of mark II and mark III battlecruisers that had white armor. This armor belonged to the Science Federation. Mutants couldn't survive long distance space travel so the Science Federation could not send its pets.

"Firing prototype weapon," the same older officer said.

The hole at the front of the Hyperion grew wider and a huge ball of red light gathered there.

"Firing Yamato Cannon," a computerized woman's voice rang through the Hyperion, "warning, weapons' systems overheating, possible overload of all systems, cooling units malfunctioning."

After about a minute of collecting more power, the sphere of red light exploded, shooting a huge beam of light towards the Science Federation fleet. The blast met its mark and incinerated the lead mark III battlecruiser instantly. The explosion set out an incredibly powerful recoil that tore apart several mark II battlecruisers. The two remaining mark III battlecruisers had secondary explosions running along their hull as debris and bodies floated through space.

"How long before our weapons' systems are back online?" Jim asked as the lights on the bridge flickered.

"At least half an hour if not more," someone said, "we're getting high casualty counts of engineers from internal explosions in the generator rooms and engine rooms."

"Tell the surviving engineers that they got fifteen minutes to fix the ship up."

"More UED ships entering Rapture space," someone said.

"How long before we can evacuate Rapture?" Jim sighed, accepting defeat.

"Most of the population of Rapture is in civilian transports ready to launch in five minutes."

"What about the remaining people on Rapture," Jim asked.

"The only ones not in transports are the search groups that are searching for the missing ghost squad."

"Get them on board some dropships and get ready to enter hyper space."

"Where will we go?" someone asked.

"Somewhere far away," Jim answered.

Suddenly, the UED fleet was swarmed with tiny, bright yellow flyers that shot constantly at them. Panicking, the UED fleet launched all its wraiths and valkyries, only to be disappointed with destruction. Soon, the UED and Science Federation fleets were decimated and Rapture stood relatively unharmed except for the huge holes where the kamikaze dropships had hit.

"Alien warships on sensor, sir," an officer said, "should we open fire?"

"No," Jim said immediately, "hold your fire, they're allies."

A huge wormhole was open and several large warships came out. They were bright yellow and oval in shape. They had a huge opening in the front where the smaller fighters retreated. The ships had some yellow stripes that went over them that could barely be seen against the luminescent gold.


	11. 3,3: Rapture, Conceiving a Plan

Chapter 3: Rapture

Chapter 3: Rapture

Part 3: Conceiving a Plan

The briefing room was especially crowded today on board the Hyperion. Large, ten-foot tall aliens stood in the wake of the humans. The aliens wore bright yellow-golden armor but most of their bodies were uncovered. They had not mouth, no ears, and no nose. Their skin varied in color from pale white to dark purple. As protection, the aliens had special personal shields and weapons on their wrists that could generate burning blades that glowed bright blue. Since the aliens did not have mouths or ears, they used their telepathic powers to speak with each other and the humans. For some strange reason, the aliens' eyes glowed whenever they spoke.

"How do we know you will not betray us like your leader, Mengsk, did." One protoss leader said.

"Calm yourself, Aldaris," and old looking female protoss said, "Raynor has been our ally in the past and he would not commit such an act."

"But Raszagal," Aldaris began.

"Someone of your position will refer to Raszagal as 'matriarch'," an old protoss male said, "We trust Raynor possibly more than we trust you."

"Of course, patriarch," Aldaris apologized, "forgive me, matriarch."

"We don't have time to be arguing if we can trust each other," Jim said, "we should be worrying about finding a place to stay. Once the UED and Science Federation find out that their fleets were destroyed, they'll send larger fleets with greater firepower and more fighters."

"Rapture is all we have," a man said.

"Don't be too sure, Arnabis," Jim said, "We could travel through hyper space back to where Zeratul and Raszagal came from."

"No," Raszagal objected, "We came here to rally the humans and join together. We have a greater problem than your enemies, Jim. A new Overmind is growing on Char and the remaining Zerg on Auir that have rallied together."

"Then we'll go over there and destroy it, I mean it must still be in its youth." Jim said, "It's probably the size of just one tank if it started growing right after Kerrigan killed the old one."

"That is not possible," Zeratul said, "the new Overmind is already the size of three nexus. Or for you humans, four command centers, if not larger."

"But it takes millions of years for an Overmind to reach maturity," Jim said.

"We believe something is speeding its growth," Raszagal said, "and that's not all. The Zerg have recognized a new leader in the Overmind and are protecting it. Our entire fleet wouldn't stand much of a chance against the number of Zerg that cover Char."

"Sir," Arnabis said, "what about the blueprints for the prototype 'Ring' we found when we took the blueprints for the mark III battlecruiser?"

"Those blueprints only graph a small part of the 'Ring' and we don't have the necessary recourses to build even that part."

"What does this 'Ring' do?" Raszagal asked.

"It's a weapon that's supposed to be used to cleanse entire planets of life from far away, without getting close enough for a battle to be held directly over orbit," Jim explained, "but there's no way that we, the UED, or the Science Federation would have enough recourses to finish it in the next hundred years."

"We don't have a hundred years," Aldaris said, "at this rate, the Overmind will reach full maturity and mental power in two years, if not less."

"Which is why we must rally all humans under one banner and unite against this new threat," Zeratul said.

"No," Jim said, "the Science Federation is fascinated by the Zerg and news of this will make them protect the Zerg. And Mengsk definitely won't help us."

"Hey," Arnabis called, "Aren't we forgetting the task at hand? We have to discuss about where we're going to go. We can go back where the Protoss came from, go back to Earth, or we stay here and die."

"Where did you guys come from, anyways?" Jim asked.

"We made refuge on Shakuras, the lost planet of my people," Zeratul said, "we have a single vast base on the surface with an incomplete defense grid that we based off the defenses around human planets."

"I say we go back to Earth and try to assimilate the UED and Science Federation," Arnabis said.

"How do you plan on doing that?" Jim said.

"We have somebody who knows the UED better than any of us. And you befriended him, Jim." Arnabis explained.

"You mean Tychus Findlay?" Jim said.

"Yes," Arnabis said, "I mean Tychus Findlay, the marine, part-time taxi driver."

"Alright," Jim said, "where is he?"

"He's on board one of the mark II battlecruisers," a young officer said.

"Get him here," Jim ordered.

Just as ordered, fifteen minutes later Tychus entered the large briefing room.

"Welcome Tychus," Jim said, "We're planning on going back to Earth and we need you to explain the defense system of the UED."

"Well," Tychus was a little hesitant at first but decided to tell as much as he knew, "I'm just a marine but I know quite a bit about the UED defense system. As you know, the UED controls most of the space grid around Earth and a hole can be planted using your ion cannon. But there are surface bases covering the ground underneath the defense grid platforms. But there is one barren spot that, luckily for us, holds the capital of the UED.

"The capital is protected with small bases around it that have powerful sensor towers. If we destroy the sensor towers quick enough, and in unison, Mengsk should think that there was a system failure of some kind and won't think much of it at first, thinking that it will be up again in a few hours.

"In that time frame of a few hours, if we can knock out outgoing communications and assure that not a single sensor tower is still up, we can launch a full assault on the capital while most of the UED sits oblivious to the attack. We should set up a perimeter around the capital as well, to make sure that no runners try to get word out to the rest of the UED."

"How do you plan on deactivating all outgoing communications in the capital?" Jim asked.

"There's a major hole in the UED communications systems. While all incoming communications are secure in various places in the capital, there are several buildings just outside the perimeter of the capital. If you can destroy each one of these buildings or deactivate it with an EMP, outgoing communications will become foggy and confusing. This will buy us some time to get rid of the final factor that allows the capital to send messages.

"In the air space above the capital there are hundreds of satellites that fly around doing most of the work. If you fly the Hyperion in just outside the sensor range of the capital and activate the gravity well, every single little satellite will come crashing down into the surface or, if lucky, right into the capital itself, causing confusion and chaos."

"That's a good plan," Arnabis said, "but how do we know that the rest of the UED won't send reinforcements as soon as they realize that the space defense grid has been neutralized?"

"We won't have to worry about that," Tychus explained, "Mengsk needs to give the order before a single marine can move towards the capital."

"That's good," Jim laughed, "let's start preparing all ships for hyper space and back to Earth, enemy forces could be here any moment."


	12. 3,4: Rapture, Back to Earth

Chapter 3: Rapture

Chapter 3: Rapture

Part 4: Back to Earth

Tychus was in his new marine suit and getting loaded into a protoss shuttle since a large amount of the human dropships were destroyed when the kamikaze dropships hit Rapture. He held his new rifle close to him; he was unnerved whenever he saw an alien. The mouth less creatures filled most of the shuttle and there were no seats. Tychus wondered what kind of chaos would happen once the shuttle took off and the humans would lose their balance. But after a few minutes of no movement, the drop door opened and they were at their destination. Tychus hadn't even noticed the shuttle take off.

"Sir," Inside the bridge of the Hyperion, Jim and a lot of officers were trying to get everything done, "the mines have been set, the last shuttles and dropships have boarded, and the entire fleet is ready for hyper space travel back to Earth."

"Prepare to enter hyper space," Jim ordered.

"Hyper space engines are ready for hyper speed,"

"The first UED ships will be here in fifteen seconds,"

The many rebel battlecruisers and protoss carriers were all huddled together next to Rapture. Around Rapture and the fleet of humans and protoss was a huge space minefield. The mines were sphere shaped and magnetized. Just as suspected, the UED ships left hyper space right in the middle of the minefield. The UED fleet was almost completely devastated by the mines, leaving a clear path through the minefield.

"That's our path," Jim said, "fly right by the UED; activate hyper space, now."

The entire fleet of human and protoss ships disappeared, leaving an abandoned Rapture, crippled UED fleet, and half a minefield. But just before they had left, Jim's men had rigged the ion cannon, which was set on a hidden platform orbiting the moon, to fire at the space defense grid above the UED capital. The fleet traveled for about fifteen minutes before leaving hyper space just out of range of the Earth defense grid. Just on time, a huge blue ball of fire flew right by the fleet, entered Earth's atmosphere and exploded. Soon, platforms were visible as they set fire while falling through Earth's atmosphere.

"The platforms are down," an officer informed Jim, "I am ordering our forces to move to their designated locations."

Soon, rebel forces were scattered around the UED capital and preparing to destroy each small base that contained a sensor tower.

"Begin the attack," Jim ordered.

"Commencing bombing run," the pilot of a tomahawk bomber said. A tomahawk bomber was about four times bigger than a dropship and had dozens of drop doors and plenty of laser, missile, and machine gun turrets. The drop doors opened and MTAs flew out. MTA stood for Miniature Tactical Nuke. The MTAs did incredible damage in a small, controlled area which meant the small base beneath the tomahawk bomber was reduced to nothing almost immediately.

At the same time, dozens of arclite siege tanks sat on a cliff overseeing a different base with a tall tower in the center. The tanks went into siege mode as large metal clamps stuck them onto the floor. The tanks' double barrels retracted into the head of the tank and a single rectangular barrel came out the other side. The tanks all aimed their siege weapons at the base and opened fire. The base and everything in it was quickly reduced to a small pile of ash.

Meanwhile, two behemoth class mark II battlecruisers flew almost directly over a small base. The people in the base panicked and attempted to send out mayday messages but they were all intercepted by rebel science vessels in the area. The two battlecruisers used a new prototype weapon called the 'lightning generator' which was given the order to fire by the commodore saying, 'bring down the lightning'. The weapon used the hole in the front of the hammerhead to fire multiple small lasers. It was like a barrage of small lasers. The two battlecruisers fired the prototype weapon and soon, the entire base was a big pile of smoldering rubble.

And while all this was going on, Nova snuck close enough to a small base containing a sensor tower to call down a tactical nuke. She aimed her rifle at the base of the sensor tower and a red light emitted from her rifle. Only ghosts could hold rifles steady enough for calling down a nuke from this distance and still be accurate. Nobody even noticed anything was amiss until they saw a giant missile coming down from the sky. Nova simply sat and watched as the small base was turned into a large crater. These small bases were being destroyed everywhere and all at the same time. In less than twenty seconds, every single base was gone.

"Must be some kind of glitch in the system," Mengsk sat back in his chair, not worried about the bases disappearing from the screen, "tell the technicians to find out what's wrong and fix it, ASAP."

"Firing EMP missile," a man with metallic plates all over his head said. The bridge to the science vessel was small and empty except for that one man. Science vessels were taller than battlecruisers but not quite as long. They were giant flying spheres with metallic rings around them. The giant ring around each science vessel was a gravity belt and it kept everything on board the science vessel straight, even if the science vessel was tipped upside down and entered the gravitational pull of a black hole. Battlecruisers, wraiths, dropships, tomahawks, and valkyries all hade this gravity belt but for them it was built in and not as powerful. Banshees were the only aircraft without the gravity belt on the inside or out. Science vessels also had all kinds of scanners, sensors, and communication satellites built all over them. Science vessels were the hosts for most of the scientific research that went on. A science vessel fired a single EMP missile and the missile hit a building that was in sight of the UED capital.

"Sir," a woman's voice informed Mengsk, "It seems that our primary outgoing communications network has been disrupted. We can no longer quickly send messages to the other UED forces."

"The space grid," a ghost standing next to Mengsk said, "the sensor towers, and now this. This can't all be a coincidence, someone is trying to overthrow the capital, and they know how to do it."

"Calm yourself," Mengsk said, "they still do not know of our communication satellites that fly above the capital. Send word for reinforcements." Mengsk stood and walked to his viewing window. In fact, the walls that led to the outside were made of glass. Instead of putting cameras on the outside and having screens that looked like windows, Mengsk wanted the real thing and put glass walls around his office. His office was at the very top of a huge tower that stood in the center of the capital.

"Activate the gravity well," Jim ordered.

Suddenly, everything around the Hyperion seemed to bend and flex in awkward directions. Above the capital, the effects of the gravity well were much stronger and pulled the small satellites down to Earth. The satellites looked like larger than average meteors that came crashing down into the UED capital. Mengsk steadied himself as everything around him seemed to bend and flex. He felt dizzy and once everything was back to normal, he saw his precious satellites crashing into his own city.

"Sorry, Mengsk," a woman's voice spoke to Mengsk, "your distress call didn't reach other UED forces."

"Send wraiths," Mengsk ordered, "send ten wraiths to each neighboring UED base with a message to send reinforcements."

Soon, wraiths were flying out of the capital in every direction in groups of ten. But Protoss carriers that carried a huge number of small interceptors cut them short. Interceptors were smaller than wraiths and easier to destroy, but they were hard to hit. An interceptor was basically a bar with spheres on each end. Not a single wraith made it past the protoss barrier. And so the main attack force moved in to invade the UED capital.


	13. 4,1: Angel City, Street Battles

Chapter 4: Angel City

Chapter 4: Angel City

Part 1: Street Battles

It was the middle of the night but no lights were on in the city. Mainly because there was no need for lights, the streets were lit up by tracer and incendiary rounds from all sorts of weapons. Marines fired tracer rounds from their impaler gauss rifles. Tanks fired explosive shells that tore buildings apart. Goliaths fired their twin cannons at each other and launched hellfire missiles at tall buildings. Vultures ran through the city, dropping spider mines and launching cluster bomb grenades everywhere. Special marines called firebats had flamethrowers attached to their wrists and set flame to everything they saw. The city was in an uproar and the streets were filled with chaos. Even though the rebels had broken into Angel city, the capital of the UED, it was not without defenses. Out of the ground came automated machine gun and missile turrets.

"Forward," a field commander ordered his unit. The street was full of rubble and blue and red corpses. The red marine front pushed forward but they only got about half way through the street. A goliath bearing blue armor turned a corner and met face-to-face with the unit of rebel marines. The goliath opened fire with its twin cannons and quickly mowed down the rebel ranks.

"Take cover!" was the new order. But it was too late; the marines were already dead. But from behind the rubble the rebel marines were just taking cover from, a tank charged through. The tank fired its double barrel once at the goliath but it did little damage to the hard armor. The goliath pummeled the tank with round after round from the twin cannons, but the tank stood its ground. Instead of shooting the goliath directly again, the tank aimed upwards and shot the building next to the goliath. Rubble came tumbling down and buried the goliath.

Suddenly, a missile came from the dust in the air and hit the tank. The tank all of a sudden became inoperable and couldn't do anything. A single ghost ran out of the dust and stopped next to the tank. The ghost then planted an explosive on the outside of the tank and ran back to the dust. The tank exploded with deadly force and sent debris flying everywhere.

Somewhere else in Angel city, a large brigade of rebel tanks was making its way through the city. Nothing seemed to be working to stop the rampage of tanks. But a giant machine turned a corner and met with the large line of tanks. The machine had six giant legs connected to a platform. Mounted on board the platform was a huge metal box with dozens of holes on one side. The box turned to face the tanks that were firing at the six-legged machine at no use. Hundreds of small missiles swarmed out of the box and hit the front tanks. Dust and rubble flew in every direction as the small missiles hit their targets. The missiles started moving farther and hitting the tanks closer to the back. After a while of launching thousands of missiles, the giant six-legged machine ceased firing. The dust in the air settled and in its wake sat dozens of heaps of twisted metal.

Elsewhere in the city there were two piles of rubble. Behind each pile sat a unit of marines; one unit of marines had blue armor and the other had red. The marines were having a ferocious firefight. Just as another unit of reinforcements arrived for the UED side, three vultures flew over the heads of the rebels and flew right by the UED marines. Almost immediately after the vultures sped over the UED marines, cluster bombs exploded and sent UED marines flying in all directions. Rubble, guns, and body parts flew everywhere, clearing the way for the rebel unit.

Another firefight between UED marines and rebel marines was going on not too far away and the rebels were winning. Just as the last UED marine was shot dead, another six-legged walker came around. It shot hundreds of missiles and destroyed the rebel marines. But right before the walker was about to move on, a giant, blue, glowing scarab skittered around a corner, quickly moved underneath the six-legged walker and exploded with deadly force. The walker was heavily damaged but still alive, but all hope was lost when another walking bomb crawled under it and exploded. After that, the thing that unleashed the crawling bombs appeared. It crawled from around a street corner. It was a giant metal worm that moved by pulling itself with its front teeth, if they could be called teeth. The small glowing scarabs that these worms shot came from an iris mouth that is hidden behind the teeth in the front. These giant, long-range worms were of protoss origin and were called 'reavers'.

The protoss had entered the battle as well and much to the surprise of the UED forces that didn't know how to counter protoss units. A large army of protoss charged through the city. These protoss had glowing sabers on their wrists and personal shields to protect them against bullets and shrapnel. These 'zealots' cut their way through UED ranks and dug deep into the city.

Two goliaths and an army of marines stood in front of the zealot army. One zealot in front led the others as the goliaths shot at the zealots with twin cannons. The lead zealot jumped high into the air and came down on one of the goliaths, digging his energy saber into the head of the goliath and killing the pilot inside. The other zealots simply slashed at the second goliaths legs and eventually it fell down onto the ground where the zealots could rip open the head and get to the pilot inside. The lead zealot jumped off the top of the goliath and landed on a helpless marine, digging his wrist blades deep into the marine's chest. The line of marines fired their gauss rifles at the charging zealots but the tracer rounds simply bounced off the protoss shields. The zealots hit the marine line hard and fast. The cut their enemies down to size and continued to the second line of marines, who were quite shaken to see only a few zealots fall to their gunfire. The second line hardly did any better and the third line of marines simply retreated.

Throughout the city were several walkers that shot thousands of small missiles each that terrorized the rebel forces. But since there were very few goliaths left in the city, it was safe enough to send in tomahawk bombers. The precision bombers flew over the city and opened their drop doors. They let loose their deadly arsenal of MTNs onto the city surface. The main targets of the tomahawks were the walkers and they hit them dead-on. The MTNs landed almost directly on the walkers, destroying them immediately. With the walkers gone, virtually no air defense, and rebel and protoss forces pushing farther into the city, it seemed hopeless for Angel city to survive this assault. But just as all hope was lost, wraiths shot out of the ground. Huge holes opened up in the streets near the center of the city and hundreds of wraiths came out. The wraiths flew around and hunted down the tomahawks that destroyed the walkers. The wraiths were turning the tables since zealots were melee fighters and couldn't hurt anything in the air. Banshee attack helicopters also flew out of the holes and reigned terror on the streets.

The rebel ship, Hyperion, soon entered the battlefield and launched its own wraiths and valkyries. Wraiths and valkyries engaged in deadly air-to-air dogfights while rebel dropships dropped off goliath reinforcements to battle the banshees.

Two banshees cornered a single goliath and launched dozens of air-to-ground missiles and fired off thousands of bullets from multiple Gatling guns. Once the dust settled there was barely anything left of the goliath. But suddenly, two hellfire missiles came from behind the banshees and destroyed one. The remaining banshee turned around and saw three rebel goliaths standing in the street. Six hellfire missiles left the launching pods of the goliaths and hit the hovering banshee. The banshee exploded immediately and metal shrapnel rained on the street. Now, the rebels were back on the winning side and most of the city had been razed. Now the inner city had to be taken, then the tall tower in the middle of Angel city that held Mengsk.


	14. 4,2: Angel City, Taking Control a

Chapter 4: Angel City

Chapter 4: Angel City

Part 2: Taking Control (a)

Near the middle of a burning city was a heavily armored tank guarded by five goliaths and two other tanks. At one point the convoy stopped and the door to the middle tank opened. Jim stepped out as the driver of the tank was saying something.

"This is as far as I can take you," the driver said, "it's safer if you walk to the rest of the way. Reports say that all the blocks between here and the tower are crawling with marines with RPGs and ghosts with high explosives. But don't worry; we're not leaving you alone."

Not five seconds after that, a human dropship and protoss shuttle landed behind the convoy. Out of the human dropship came fourteen marines and two ghosts, including Edward Jimenez, and Nova. The protoss shuttle had twelve zealots.

"Who's the leader of this group?" Jim asked the humans.

"I am," Edward replied, "Lieutenant Edward Jimenez ready for orders, sir."

"Where's lieutenant insignia, son?" Jim asked, noticing that Edward's suit only had the rank of sergeant on it.

"I gave myself a field promotion, sense the other lieutenant died on the way here," Edward said.

"I thought there'd be more," Jim said, taking a second look at the zealots.

"There was," Edward said, "two more dropships and one other shuttle, but they all got shot down. We're the only ones left."

"Then call in for more reinforcements," Jim ordered.

"Already done, sir." A marine said.

"Since I've only got a handful of men," Jim said, looking at the driver of the middle tank, "you're tagging along."

"No offense, sir," the driver said, "but leading armor into an explosive infested area is suicide. It's better off leading a division of men in on foot, it's a lot harder for ghosts to plant explosives on you."

"You've got fourteen marines, two ghosts, and twelve zealots as cover," Jim said.

"Yes, sir," the driver said as he closed the tank door.

"Onward," Jim ordered, and three tanks, five goliaths, twelve marines, two ghosts, and twelve zealots all moved forward with Jim in the middle. The large group moved through the ruined streets as explosions and gunfire went off in all directions. There were still dogfights in the air although the Hyperion had obviously won over the UED air units.

"Enemy targets closing in fast," a marine said, "vultures by the look of 'em. There's three of 'em, one seems to be lagging behind the others, probably damaged, sir."

"Hold position," Jim shouted, "you two," he pointed at Nova and the other ghost, "get ready to lockdown the two that come first. Nova you lock down the first, the other one lockdown the second. The rest of you open fire on the third. Fenix, you and your zealots stay back, for now."

The zealots were frustrated by the fact that they were being held back but they knew that two lockdowned vultures and a damaged vulture would be little challenge for them.

Within seconds, the first two vultures came around the street corner and Nova and the other ghost both launched specialized lockdown missiles at them. The vultures lost their hover ability and tumbled across the ground before ramming into a building. The third vulture had an engine on fire but still managed to launch one cluster grenade before getting torn to shreds by tank and goliath fire. The single cluster grenade hit the lead goliath and exploded. The damaged goliath now had a red spot from the heat of the explosion but little permanent damage had been done.

"Keep those sensors on full blast," Jim said, "next time something like this happens, we'll be ready to tear 'em apart just like this."

"That just might happen, sir." The same marine said, "Multiple targets closing in. Looks like infantry moving through the buildings."

"Take up positions," Jim ordered, "Fenix, this might be your time to shine. Take your zealots through the buildings and clear them out. Marines, spread out and find cover. Nova, take your partner ghost and make sure no UED ghosts sneak up and blow up our armor."

"En taro Adun," the front zealot said, "Come with me, my men. We shall purge this land."

Marines set up watch posts in the two buildings sandwiching the tanks and goliaths while Nova and the other ghost sat behind the convoy and watched the streets for any ripples in the air or signs of movement. Jim kneeled down behind a pile of rubble for cover and the twelve zealots charged into the two buildings in front of the group, six for each building.

"If you see anything blue that's not glowing," Jim said, "shoot it."

As Jim finished his fire at will order, a single rocket shot from the fourth floor window of the front, left building. The rocket hit the lead goliath almost in the exact same spot as the cluster grenade from the vulture. The rocket had less effect than the cluster grenade but it still hurt. A barrage of gunfire then opened on the immediate area of where the rocket came from. That entire part of the building was soon destroyed, leaving a gaping hole in the building. Then, a gunshot was heard, but this was different from a gauss rifle. It was loud and sounded powerful. It was unmistakable, the shot came from a canister rifle.

"Bloody hell, they're behind us!" a marine shouted.

"Nova," Jim shouted, "hunt down the ghost that shot that rifle, now!"

Nova complied and abandoned her post behind the convoy. She entered the building where the shot was heard from and found a dead, rebel marine lying on the ground. A part of his suit had been blown to bits by the powerful canister rifle. Depending on how loud the shot was, and how much damage was done to the suit the dead marine was wearing, the rival ghost was using explosive canisters instead of armor piercing rounds, the kind Nova was using. Suddenly, the lead goliath exploded with deadly force and red hot shrapnel flew everywhere. Jim ducked as a large piece of metal from the leg of the goliath flew over his mound of rubble.

"What the hell," Jim shouted, "you're supposed to be watching our armor!"

"Sorry, sir," the ghost apologized, "It won't happen again."

Half of a UED marine fell out the third story window of the forward right building as a blue light emitted from the room. It signaled a kill for the protoss. Now gunfire was heard inside the forward buildings but they weren't directed outside at Jim's group. Inside one of the forward buildings, there was a group of three zealots engaging a group of four marines in a large corridor hallway. The front marine fired off his last rounds into the front zealot but the bullets bounced off an invisible shield that glowed bright blue whenever struck. The zealot stabbed the marine in the chest with both of his deadly wrist blades and tore him in half as the other two zealots charged past him and attacked the remaining three marines. In the other forward building across the street, six zealots were finishing slaughtering a cornered group of marines.

"There, the job is done," one zealot said, "I do not sense any other beings inside this building."

"Still," a second zealot objected, "there could be ghosts on the fourth floor or roof that are hiding their presence."

"I doubt there are any more humans in the building," the first zealot said.

As the zealot said this, a gunshot rang through the building and a small hole opened up on the ceiling. The six zealots looked up as a small object fell from the hole. The object had a blinking red light and was emitting a beeping sound.

"Do you still doubt?" the second zealot said right before the object exploded and sent the six zealots flying out of the third floor of the building and onto the street below.

"Shit," Jim shouted, "you guys alright?"

"We're fine," a zealot said as the six zealots got up, "It will take more than that to kill a zealot." As he finished this sentence, several of the same small objects were thrown out of the fourth floor of the building he just came flying out of, "but that might do."

The six zealots kneeled down and shielded their faces with their wrist blades as the multiple bombs detonated, shrouding the entire street with dust and debris. Nova ran into another room as another gunshot from a canister rifle was heard. She found another dead rebel marine but this time she also found the culprit. A ghost was standing in the doorway with a raised canister rifle. The UED ghost aimed at Nova but Nova was quick to pull out her katana and get close to the UED ghost. The UED ghost dropped his rifle and unsheathed his katana just in time to block Nova's downward strike.

"Come on, baby," the masked UED ghost said, "I wouldn't want to hurt a fine thing such as yourself."

Nova, being without a mask, simply smiled at the UED ghost, "sorry, you're not my type."

Nova pulled her sword back and swung diagonally from the ground up. The UED ghost blocked the strike and pulled out a pistol. Nova pulled back again swung from downward on the UED ghost. The UED ghost blocked Nova's strike again and aimed his pistol at her. Nova lifted her left leg up and kicked at the UED ghost's pistol. But the UED ghost dropped his pistol before Nova's kick even landed and instead grabbed her leg. He lifted her leg up and pushed, knocking Nova onto her back. Nova had abandoned her rifle early on in the fight and now she had also dropped her sword. She reached for her sidearm but with one quick swing the barrel to her pistol was gone. The UED ghost raised his sword, preparing to deliver the killing blow, but then a bullet hole opened up in his chest. The shot came from a canister rifle behind the UED ghost. He stumbled forward and landed on Nova, dead. Nova, disgusted, pushed the dead ghost off of her and got up. Edward had walked in on the fight and picked up Nova's canister rifle.

By now only four of the six zealots that were hit with multiple bombs were still alive. That four reentered the building and had hunted down the ghost that kept on throwing bombs. The rebel ghost that hid behind the convoy shot his rifle and the bullet soared through an invisible body that was trying to get close to another goliath. The invisible body became visible and dropped onto the ground, dead. Six zealots walked out of the forward left building, one of them had blood splattered all over him.

"I see you've been busy, Fenix," Jim said with a laugh.

"Indeed," the blood-covered zealot said, "Although I feel as if I didn't let my men get enough kills."

"They'll get their chance," Jim signaled for his men to leave the cover of the buildings.

So all the marines and Nova left the cover buildings and continued on with the rest of the group down the road. But the group was now down one goliath, five marines, and two zealots and they hadn't even traveled two blocks yet. It was going to be a long walk to the center of Angel city.


	15. 4,3: Angel City, Taking Control b

Chapter 4: Angel City

Chapter 4: Angel City

Part 3: Taking Control (b)

Three dropships dodged missiles and rockets as they sped towards the center of the city. One was hit on the left holding area, killing eight marines that were staying in there. The right side still had another eight marines but a second missile struck the dropship in the cockpit. The cockpit exploded and the dropship nosedived into a burning building.

Three goliaths stood in the middle of a body-filled street. They launched hellfire missiles and shot down a single banshee helicopter. They shot their twin cannons at the sides of the buildings, tearing them apart. Suddenly, one goliath exploded into thousands of tiny pieces. A different goliath backed up but a rocket hit the top of the building next to the goliath. The rubble came down and hit the goliath. The goliath toppled over and landed on its side. The crippled goliath was almost instantly hit with a barrage of rockets.

The lone goliath then ran out of bullets for its twin cannons and also ran out of hellfire missiles. As dozens of UED marines prepared to launch rockets at the defenseless goliath, two dropships landed behind the goliath. The drop doors opened up and sixteen marines came out of each dropship. The marines took up positions behind cover around the goliath and began defending it. Two marines came out of a dropship carrying a large metal container. The back of the goliath opened up and a different metal container fell out. The marines replaced the empty cartridge with the new one and the back of the goliath closed back up. After the area was secure the lead marine spoke into the radio in his helmet.

"The forward area is secure," the marine said.

Not a minute after the all clear sign was given, three tanks, six goliaths, and a number of infantry units came onto the street. It was Jim's group. Jim wore a slightly larger marine suit than the other marines and he had abandoned his older rifle for a newer impaler rifle. They were getting close to the center of the city and the tall tower that Mengsk was hiding out in.

"Jim," Jim's comm. Link opened up.

"What is it?" Jim asked.

"We have mutants coming out of the ground," the man on the other side of the comm. Link said. Gunshots could be heard in the background.

"The Science Federation?" Jim asked.

"Yeah, they came out of the ground in these giant drills. It's mainly small underlings and hydralisks. A few of the drills had an ultraling behind them but I think we can handle them. Just lettin' you know."

"Alright," Jim said, "Keep them off our backs."

"Yes, sir," the comm. Link closed.

"Reinforcements have arrived," Edward informed Jim. As he did, a single dropship with smoke bellowing from its back engines landed in the street. Eight marines came out of each holding tank, so sixteen marines came out, including Tychus Findlay. Most of the UED inner defenses were busy defending other parts or had already tried to stop Jim's convoy. The path seemed clear of all enemies now and the group would reach the tower in the center of the city in less than fifteen minutes.

"Sir," A marine holding a special sensor walked over to where Jim was, "there's something on the sensor but I can't make it out."

Jim took a look at the little red dot on the sensor. It was staying in one place but the sensor said it was moving closer.

"It's underground," Jim said, "somethin's diggin' its way up to the surface."

­

Suddenly a giant spinning drill tore through the ground in front of the group. The drill was connected to a heavily armored tank that crawled out of the ground. Following the tank was a swarm of small mutant creatures.

"Hold your ground," Jim ordered.

"Make a wall," Edward ordered the marines, "protect the goliaths!"

Goliaths were particularly weak against masses of small melee mutants, so all the marines got in a line in front of the goliaths.

"Fire at will," Edward ordered.

Dozens of gauss rifles let out fully automatic gunfire on the massing underlings. The underlings in the front were mowed down immediately by the thousands of tracer rounds that lit up the space between the marines and their targets. Crimson red blood and mutant body parts flew in every direction. But all of the marines firing at once had a downside. The standard marine gauss rifle had about ten seconds of constant automatic gunfire before running out of bullets. Every single marine ran out of bullets at the same time and the goliaths weren't enough. The line of underlings charged forward towards the line of marines. Many of the marines had managed to reload before the underlings reached them but it was slightly late. But each marine had excellent training and had practiced this situation in battle simulations. A marine quickly reloaded and knocked away the first underling with the butt of his rifle before firing on the second one.

"Pull back," Edward ordered.

Slowly, the line of marines backed up, still firing their second clips of bullets. The underling line still charged forward but every single one was knocked back with bullets. The goliaths and tanks backed up in unison with the marines but the tanks could not fire without risking friendly fire on the marines. The underlings eventually got close enough to start jumping on the marines, and that was when the marines started dying. One after the other the underlings jumped at the line of marines. Most were knocked away by rifle butts but some landed on unlucky marines who were knocked to the ground. When one marine was downed, he was immediately targeted by nearby underlings and torn apart. Marines were trained not to help other marines when in this particular type of situation, instead the marines on the left and right of the felled marine would take half a step to the side and close up the gap, which meant whenever a marine was lost the entire line moved slightly. This strategy only worked in smaller groups of marines from one to four dozen marines. Finally, the hole in the ground stopped spitting out underlings.

"You think we killed them all?" a marine asked.

Suddenly, an ultraling charged out of the gaping hole and rushed at the line of marines.

"Disperse," Edward shouted, but it was too late.

The ultraling rammed through the marine ranks, knocking three into the air and cutting a fourth in half with its giant Kaiser blades. The remaining marines rushed to the sides of the street to avoid the giant monster. The ultraling rammed into a goliath and tipped it over onto its back. The goliath was a sitting duck while lying on the ground. With the marines out of the way, the tanks opened fire on the ultraling. The monster made a disgusting roar as explosive shells ignited on its side. But the hard carapace absorbed the blasts and the ultraling continued tearing the fallen goliath apart. Finally, the ultraling carapace failed and the shell from a tank ripped into the ultraling and detonated. The monster fell down onto its stomach as guts and blood spilled from a gaping, burning hole on its side.

"What the hell is the Science Federation doing here?" Tychus yelled.

"I guess they were planning to fuck the UED today, too," Jim said, "But that doesn't matter, let's keep moving."

Several minutes later the group reached the tall tower in the center of the city and the sun was going down fast. There was about half an hour of sunlight left.

"Nova," Jim said, "Go in with the zealots and clear the first floor. Marines go in after her and start clearing the upper floors. All tanks and goliaths stay outside and blast any UED or mutants that come close. Reinforcements have already been ordered to come in."

Nova and the zealots that were waiting in the back all charged into the building and started killing the UED guards. Nova and her partner ghost shot down automated gun turrets while the zealots sliced through UED guard ranks. Soon marines joined into the fight and ran up the stairs. The elevators were closed down and extra guards were placed on the stairs. But nothing could stop the rush of rebel marines that shot upwards towards the top of the tower. Once almost everything was cleared out, Jim walked into the building.

Bodies in blue uniforms were scattered around on the floor. Broken automated gun turrets hanged from the ceiling and walls. Blood, guts and body parts were spread out everywhere.

"You've made a wondrous mess of things, Fenix," Jim walked up to a zealot, "you, Nova, and the other zealots can go outside and help out the tanks and goliaths. Reinforcements should be here any second. You, come with me." Jim pointed at the second ghost.


	16. 4,4: Angel City, Grudges

Chapter 4: Angel City

Chapter 4: Angel City

Part 4: Grudges

Jim Raynor stood on the first floor of the huge tower while he waited for Nova's assistant ghost to reroute control of the building to the rebel side. HE had removed his marine suit and no longer carried the heavy gauss rifle, instead he was armed only by a blaster pistol at his side. After a few minutes of just standing there, the lights came on and a woman's voice rang throughout the building for all the UED and rebel forces to hear.

"Primary control has been redirected to Dominion command," the woman's voice said, "all security systems have been disabled and power has been fed back into all non military systems."

The elevator door openedand Jim stepped inside. He pressed the button that took the elevator to the one hundred and fiftieth floor. The elevator started out slow, but quickly gained momentum and was passing ten floors a second by the time it reached floor number sixty. But because of the built in gravity well, Jim felt like the elevator was still on the first floor. The elevator began to slow at one hundred forty, and came to an abrupt halt on one hundred fifty. Jim exited the elevator and met with his marines that had made the grueling climb from the first floor to the top using the stairs.

"Has anyone entered the penthouse?" Jim asked one of his marines with the rank of sergeant.

"No, sir," The sergeant said, "We've been stationed here for about ten minutes now and no one has gone near that door."

"Good," Jim walked towards a pair of large, double doors with no windows.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" The sergeant asked.

"No," Jim said, "but if I'm not out in fifteen minutes, charge in there with your guns blazing."

With that, Jim pushed open one of the double doors and walked into the office. The office held one desk, several cabinets, and a rather large, empty section, perhaps strictly for viewing. The entire section of wall that led to the outside had been replaced with panes of glass. The glass had been polished to perfection so it was impossible to tell there was glass even there.

"Welcome to my penthouse," an old yet healthy voice said.

Jim looked for the source of the voice. His eyes and ears led him to see a couch placed right next to the open space. On the couch sat a man in his fifties with a long beard. The man was dressed in fine clothing and carried a two-foot long sword. The sword had a barrel running the length of it and two triggers at the handle. There was also a part of the sword that was lined with jagged edges, like a 20th century chainsaw.

"Where's your bodyguard?" Jim asked.

"Oh," The old man stood up, "He's just taking care of some of his personal interests."

"I didn't know that was allowed in your empire," Jim said.

"I am not a dictator," The old man chuckled, "besides, I approved it."

"So you plan on dying well dressed, just like you said all those long years ago," Jim changed the subject.

"And I see you plan on dying without a shave," The old man referred to Jim's short, yet dirty beard.

"Let's get this over with, Mengsk," Jim said, raising his rifle.

"Let's," Mengsk suddenly charged Jim.

Jim managed to deflect Arcturus' sword swing with his combat knife that he pulled out at the last second. But he dropped his knife from the shockwave of the blow. Arcturus aimed his sword at Jim and pulled the trigger under his index finger, a single bullet left the barrel on the sword. The bullet missed Jim's heart by just a few inches and hit his left arm. Jim dropped his rifle and held his wound. But Arcturus continued firing his sword. Jim dove behind a desk and the bullets flew right through the desk and each one missed Jim by mere inches. After fifteen shots, Arcturus hit a button on his sword and a clip fell from the handle of his sword. He reached for a second clip to make sure Jim was dead, but then Jim leaped from behind the desk and tackled Arcturus. Arcturus was knocked to the ground but still had a firm grip on his sword. Jim got up before Arcturus and grabbed a short katana that was hanging from the wall. Arcturus got up and quickly raised his sword to block a downward strike from Jim.

Four dropships sped towards the center of the city, each dropship was filled with sixteen marines. Missiles and rockets flew from the buildings and streets, but most missed without any evasive maneuvers.

"LZ twelve, this is beta six nine, do you copy, over," the pilot of the leading dropship said into the radio.

"This is LZ twelve, where the hell are you?" Nova shouted into her radio, "The UED is sending all it has at us, over."

"We've lost two birds on the way there but our ETA is less than one minute," the pilot said, "the area's way too hot for a landing so we're dropping the payload while we're flying by, over."

"Affirmative, we'll be waiting, over out." Nova turned off her radio and continued firing her rifle at incoming UED marines.

"The LZ is too hot for a traditional landing so you boys better be ready to jump in fifteen seconds," the pilot said into a speaker.

"Oh, shit," a sergeant marine said.

"What, what's going to happen?" a private marine asked. It was his first mission and didn't know what to expect.

"I jumped out of a dropship once," the sergeant said, "along with fifteen other good men. The area was probably less hot than this city but we still lost five men on the way down. We're easy targets when we drop from the dropship. No cover and our jump packs let off a lot of heat, making it easier for rockets and missiles to track you."

"We're almost over the LZ," the pilot said, "I'm lowering the ship down to dropping altitude and reducing speed to cruise. Just for the record, I've never done a drop run before so don't blame me if I drop you behind enemy lines."

The magnets holding the marines down to their seats deactivated and the marines stood up. The dropship buckled as small rockets hit the side. The drop door opened and a rush of air flooded the room. There were eight marines on each side of the dropship, separated by the primary engine room. These eight marines stood in a tight line to the door. The lieutenant of the sixteen marines stood at the back. The private on his first mission was right in front of the lieutenant.

"Go go go," the pilot yelled.

One by one the marines rushed out the drop door while the dropship was at a slow cruising speed of four hundred ten miles per hour. The ship was at eighty feet above the street. The marine suit was designed to absorb shock from a sixty foot fall but not any more than that. That's what the jump pack was for. It slowed the descent of the fall so it was like twenty feet instead.

Once it got to the new marine, he stopped. He looked down and saw the buildings zooming by. But the lieutenant didn't have time for this nonsense. So the lieutenant simply put his boot to the new marine's back and kicked him out of the dropship. The new marine quickly regained his mind and switched on his jump pack. His body stabilized and he slowly hovered down to the ground. Other marines were not so lucky and were shot down by gauss rifles and rockets.

The reinforcements were just arriving and they were desperately needed. Nova fired off her last few rounds and took cover behind a blown up tank. The last two goliaths stood back to back in front of the tall tower. Marines were positioned behind rubble and ruined tanks and goliaths. The position was mere minutes away from being overrun. Just as all hope was lost the UED marines stopped firing. The rebel marines all stopped firing as well from confusion. Nova stood up and examined the battlefield. Suddenly, a black figure dropped from the sky and landed right between the rebels and UED. The black figure was a man in black ghost armor. He had his knees bent all the way and his body was as close to the ground as it could get with just the feet making contact. He held a long katana horizontally in front of him. The ghost stood up straight and pointed his katana straight at Nova. Nova reached behind her and pulled her katana out of its sheath.

The deck of the Hyperion was jammed with people. Technicians frantically raced to repair damage done to the ship by unending hordes of rockets and missiles.

"Unidentified protoss warships are entering Earth's atmosphere, ETA ten seconds," a man sitting at a large console informed the general on the deck.

"Contact Selendis, ask her if she has additional fleet ships on the way," Frank Arnabis, the general, ordered.

"I already did sir, she's on the ground with Fenix's zealots,"

"The protoss fleet has reached the outskirts of Earth's atmosphere and are now traveling steadily to our position. Wait, I have an incoming transmission from the fleet's primary warship." A different man said.

"Put it on the big screen," Arnabis took a seat.

A screen suddenly popped up over the main battlefield table right in the middle of the room. The screen showed the face of a middle aged protoss male.

"Lay down your arms," the protoss said, "we are here to retrieve someone. After we have completed what we came to do, we shall be on our way. We can resolve this with no bloodshed."

"I recognize you," Arnabis said, "you're Artanis, well you can suck my balls. We don't want you here."

"Please, I do not wish for your nor my men to die today," Artanis replied.

"Who are you here to get anyway?" Arnabis asked.

"Arcturus Mengsk," Artanis said.

"Now I'm definitely not letting you through," Arnabis said.

"Very well, prepare your pathetic ship for attack, human," The screen disappeared.

"Incoming proton blasts," a man shouted.

"Brace for impact," Arnabis shouted.

Suddenly, the might Hyperion shook violently as two huge spheres of streaming blue light hit the starboard wing.

"How many enemy protoss ships are we talking about?" Arnabis said as he stood from his chair.

"Two standard carriers, one war carrier, ten arbiters and a shit load of scouts and corsairs."

"Call back our banshees, launch the science vessels and make sure they're stocked up on EMPs," Arnabis ordered, "order all remaining wraith squadrons to escort the science vessels. Redirect shields to full starboard and charge the starboard batteries as well. Be ready to even out shields if they try to get around us."

Mengsk made a downward swing towards Jim's head. Jim blocked it with the short katana but then Mengsk pulled a second trigger under his middle finger. The chainsaw revved up and began chopping away at Jim's sword. Jim's sword bounced back and forth as he tried to hold it in place against the chainsaw. Cracks began to form on the katana as Jim struggled to keep the teeth of the chainsaw away from his face. He gave one great push and pushed Mengsk back. Mengsk backed away and aimed the sword at Jim once again. He fired off three shots but each time Jim calculated where the shot would land and moved the katana in the way of the bullet. The sword vibrated violently in Jim's hands as even more cracks emerged. Jim swung sideways and Mengsk backed up just enough to dodge it. Jim swung sideways again but this time Mengsk blocked it with his sword. The short katana suddenly broke in two on Mengsk' sword. The sharp end swung off and hit Mengsk in his face. Mengsk dropped his sword and fell back. As the sword hit the ground a bullet left the barrel and shattered the glass window. Suddenly everything started to get sucked out. Mengsk covered his bloody face as he saw his own eyeball get sucked outside.

"This is the end of your rule, Mengsk," Jim picked up Mengsk' sword and held it in front of Mengsk' face.

"You would kill a helpless old man?" Mengsk shouted over the wind, not sounding scared at all.

"You'd do the same," Jim raised the sword and revved the chainsaw. But suddenly, a blue light encircled Mengsk just as Jim swung down. Jim's sword passed through nothing and hit the ground. Mengsk was gone.

"Fuck," Jim shouted, "no, fuck! Arnabis," Jim took out his radio as he walked back into the hallway, "are there any nearby arbiters?"

"There are ten arbiters sir, they're pulling away as I speak."

"Stop them, shoot them down," Jim ordered.

"We're trying but just look outside,"

Jim went back into the office room and looked out at the burning city. Three protoss carriers with purple stripes were encircling the Hyperion, hammering it with photon blast after photon blast from their photon batteris. In the distance Jim spotted several arbiters flying away.

"Arnabis," Jim walked back into the hall, "contact Selendis, tell her to call in her fleet."

"I already did sir, their ETA is about fifteen seconds,"

Jim headed back outside of the tower and barely dodged a speeding tracer round. He ducked behind a blown up siege tank and quickly looked around. Rebel marines were all pinned down and Nova was out in the open having a violent sword fight with a ghost in black. Suddenly, a blue light engulfed the ghost in black and he was gone. Nova dove behind the same siege tank as Jim and checked her body for wounds. She had several scratches along her body and face. Some were deep and some were shallow.

"We could use some help now," Nova said as she sprayed a healing substance over her wounds.

"Really, you think?" Jim said sarcastically.

"I wasn't talking to you sir," Nova said, "I was talking to Selendis."

"And where might she be?" Jim looked around for Selendis.

"She's half way across the city," Nova said.

"Then she can't really help us now can she?" Jim said.

"Well she can order someone else to," Nova said.

"Like who? She doesn't have any immortals in the city."

Suddenly a bright blue light flashed across the street and the firing stopped. Jim looked over the blown up siege tank and saw a huge crater where the UED troops used to be. He looked up and saw not one, but six carriers with bright yellow stripes blending into the standard gold color. The purple striped ships were all suddenly engulfed in blue light and vanished.

'Well done, Selendis,' Jim directed his thoughts to Selendis. He knew she heard him because she replied to him in his mind.

'Thank you, Raynor, but you should really be thanking Nova, without her, I wouldn't have known that you were in trouble.' Selendis said into Jim's mind.

Jim suddenly remembered the Hyperion and looked up to make sure it was still in the air. It was, but just barely. The ship was lopsided, the port side was higher than the starboard side and Jim could tell by the numerous fires and explosions that the gravity ring must have been damaged, meaning there was utter chaos on board the lop sided ship.

"Arnabis, damage report," Jim said into his radio,

"Eight engines are offline, gravity ring destabilized, half the internal communications down, external communications working at eighty percent, starboard weapons offline, two generators blown, loading dock completely destroyed, the deck is a mess," Arnabis went on, "the Yamato prototype weapon was probably the first thing to get targeted. The front half of the ship is hanging on by mere threads."

"What about casualties?" Jim asked.

"We're unsure at the moment but we're estimating around one thousand," Arnabis said.

"That's more than half the crew," Nova looked at Jim.

"Is the Hyperion KIA?" Jim asked.

"No," Arnabis answered immediately, "we can fix her, we just need some more engineers."

"But you said that the loading bay was gone, how are we going to get engineers on board?" Jim asked.

"Cut through the hull, section Y has zero hull breaches so far, you can come in through-"

Suddenly an explosion went off on the Hyperion to the right of the main deck area.

"Uh, never mind," Arnabis said, "section Y is no longer there. But free sections are B, M, T, X, and Z."

"Give the order yourself, external communications are still up, right?" Jim said.

"Yes, sir," Arnabis got off the radio.

"Was that war carrier with the purple stripes Artanis' capital ship?" Jim asked Nova.

"Not sure," Nova shrugged, "looked like it."

"We gotta' get you to an infirmary and get those looked at."

"I'm fine, ah, shit," Nova held her side as blood leaked out through her fingers.

"Come on," Jim helped Nova up and then saw Tychus walk by.

"Hey, Tychus, help Nova to a dropship will yeh? I'm too old for this." Jim handed Nova over to Tychus.

Angel city, the UED capital, belonged to Jim and his Dominion rebels. All around the city, UED forces were surrendering and being sent to converting camps where their brains were 'fried' into thinking that the Dominion rebel forces were better than the UED. The word that the UED capital was taken in one day literally killed remaining UED moral and suddenly the entire UED army was converted into the rebel Dominion. The UED was no more, and in its place, stood the mighty New Dominion of Earth, or the NED. All around Earth blue flags were torn down and burned and replaced with red flags with pictures of crossed gauss rifles and marine helmets. The next target for Jim's campaign on Earth was the Science Federation.


	17. 5,1: Science Federation, Torn Skies

Chapter 5: Science Federation

Chapter 5: Science Federation

Part 1: Torn Skies

Two large battlecruisers approached a single smaller battlecruiser at a steady speed. The large battlecruisers bore the NED insignia and were covered in red decorations. The names read, 'Hyperion' and 'juggernaut'. The smaller battlecruiser had gray decorations and had two letters painted in black, 'SF'.

On board the Hyperion, Arnabis ordered that a transmission be sent to the smaller Science Federation battlecruiser. The transmission was answered and a large screen appeared in the middle of the main bridge. A man's face was on the screen, and by the looks of it, the mighty Hyperion and Juggernaut terrified the man.

"Science Federation mark two behemoth class battlecruiser," Arnabis stated, "this is the NED mark three behemoth class battlecruiser, Hyperion. I demand that you power down all your systems except for gravity and life support. You have fifteen minutes to comply. When the fifteen minutes are up and you have not met our demands, your ship and everyone on it will be destroyed."

"I plan to go out with a fight," the man on the screen said as sweat trickled down his face, "I will not cowardly surrender my ship to you. The last thing I do will not be handing my ship to you so that you may use it against my own people."

"You're brave," Arnabis chuckled, "but we will not use your ship. That piece of garbage will be torn apart and the parts will be sold for whatever small amount of money we can get for it. And by the looks of it, we won't get too much."

"You insult this ship," The man on the screen said, "but it has more fight in it than you can imagine. She has been in plenty of fights and I won't be surprised if she takes out both of you monstrosities. Bring it on, I will inflict heavy casualties on your force before I die."

The screen disappeared and Arnabis chuckled even more.

"Right," Arnabis said, "fire the Yamato cannon, let's keep this patrol moving."

A red light formed at the front of the Hyperion. Once the light grew to an enormous size, it shot forward in a line and completely incinerated the enemy Science Federation battlecruiser.

"Sir," a young officer on the bridge of the Hyperion came up to Arnabis, "a small Science Federation fleet is leaving the surface of Earth and is heading in our general direction. The sensors say two mark three battlecruisers and six mark two battlecruisers."

"Eight battlecruisers is quite small for a fleet but those two mark threes will be quite a problem. But Science Federation battlecruisers don't have the Yamato cannon equipped. I think we can suffer this coming battle."

"But sir," the officer said, "the Science Federation may not have the Yamato cannon but they do have photon batteries. They developed it by reverse engineering Protoss technology."

"Well then," Arnabis said, "we better call for help."

Back on Earth, Angel city still stood and shined more than ever, except this time, it had red flags raised high instead of blue. The tower in the middle of the city was torn down and in its place stood a command center. This command center had extra guns and extra rooms. Inside the main operations room of the command center, Jim Raynor was hard at work giving orders.

"Sir," an officer walked up to Jim, "a distress call from the Hyperion. Her and the Juggernaut are reporting an imminent battle against two mark three battlecruisers and six mark two battlecruisers."

"Send five mark two battlecruisers, each one loaded with four wraith squadrons and one valkyrie squadron," Jim said.

Back on the Hyperion, wraiths were being loaded with ammunition and fuel. Pilots were heading from their quarters to their designated wraith. Wraiths that already had their pilots inside were being lined up to get shot out of the Hyperion.

"Turn the boat portside, give the Federation our starboard," Arnabis ordered, "relay a message to the Juggernaut, tell her to prepare to scramble her wraiths. And tell her that once the first mark three emerges, to fire her Yamato cannon. After her cannon is all used up, tell her to point her starboard side to the enemy. Charge our batteries to maximum. Shields full starboard, have engines ready to spin the boat around in case our starboard side gets too banged up."

The Hyperion turned towards the left so that its right side was facing the remains of the Science Federation ship that was just destroyed. All along the starboard side of the ship, openings began to form and large canisters stuck out of them. The canisters glowed bright red as engineers in space suits stood behind them. Soon, the Science Federation battlecruisers could be seen coming towards the Hyperion and Juggernaut. They grew larger as they came closer and eventually they got to where the wreckage from the destroyed battlecruiser floated.

"Incoming transmission," an officer said, "it's coming from one of those mark three battlecruisers."

"Put it on the main screen," Arnabis ordered.

A screen appeared, once again, in the center of the bridge. On the screen was the face of a man dressed in gray.

"New Earth Dominion battlecruisers," the man said, "I demand that you lay down your arms and surrender. Our batteries are much stronger than yours, we have you outnumbered and it would be a shame for your men to die."

"I was about to say the same thing," Arnabis said, "except without the outnumbering part. And without the battery part."

"This will be a battle to be remembered," the man on the screen said, "but I'm afraid that it will not last very long."

"You're right," Arnabis smiled, "it won't."

The screen disappeared and the Science Federation battlecruisers slowly began to advance. A red light began to form at the front of the Juggernaut and it could be seen drawing more red lights from around it. The light formed a sphere that continued to grow larger and larger. Once it reached a considerable size, it shot forward and struck the front of one of the Science Federation mark three battlecruisers. The hammerhead front of the battlecruiser exploded and explosions followed all along the neck portion. The damaged battlecruiser stopped in its tracks and slowly, it began to tilt towards Earth. After it was done firing, the Juggernaut began to turn left so that its starboard side was facing the enemy fleet.

"All starboard ports open," Arnabis ordered, "hold fire until enemy ships are within critical damage range, tell the Juggernaut to do the same."

The Science Federation battlecruisers launched their wraiths and began to turn so that their port sides were facing the NED. Slowly but surely, the two factions came closer to each other. The Science Federation battlecruisers opened up their portside battery ports and large canisters emerged from them. The canisters glowed bright blue and small blue spheres formed at their tips.

"Shields full starboard," Arnabis commanded and the officers on the bridge complied.

Once the blue spheres had reached a fair size, they suddenly launched forward at incredible speed. There was just a small trail of blue vapor coming from each ball of light as they hurdled across open space. The trails of vapor quickly disappeared but the spheres of photons did not show any sign of dissipating. After about five seconds of shooting across open space, the spheres of photons smashed against the side of the Hyperion. Blue explosions appeared wherever a photon blast hit. The metal around hit areas wrinkled and broke open as bodies and body parts were sucked into the vacuum of space. The bridge of the Hyperion shook furiously, but Arnabis remained calm and alert.

"Fire at will," Arnabis ordered.

The glowing red canisters along the Hyperion all unleashed their deadly cargo. Red beams of light left the Hyperion's starboard and instantly struck the remaining Science Federation mark three battlecruiser. Bright red explosions occurred all along the starboard side of the battlecruiser as the metal around the struck areas turned orange from the heat. Inside the hull, the crew of the battlecruiser was being burned alive. The beams of light did not stop coming out of the Hyperion's canisters for two seconds, allowing the prolonged bombardment of the Science Federation.

Following the Hyperion, the Juggernaut also unleashed its fury of one hundred twenty starboard electron cannons into the Science Federation fleet.

The photon based cannons aboard the Science Federation battlecruisers cooled down in almost half the time it took for the NED electron based cannons, allowing for what looked like almost rapid fire coming from the six Science Federation battlecruisers.

Red and white wraiths flew in and out of the Science Federation and NED battlecruiser ranks. Small explosions erupted everywhere as multiple wraiths were being destroyed every second. Small laser bursts flew everywhere as each faction struggled to gain fighter superiority. Gemini missiles flew from wraith to wraith and into the hulls of battlecruisers, causing minimal damage to the colossal war machines.

"Charge laser batteries one through fifty for five second prolonged fire," Arnabis ordered, "batteries fifty one through one hundred twenty continue to fire at will. Launch valkyries, order all wraiths behind enemy lines to target the SF mark three's portside shallow power core. All lasers concentrate fire on the SF mark three's starboard deep power core."

"Sir, our valkyries won't last long in that fire, shouldn't we wait for the dogfights to cool down first?" an officer aboard the bridge of the Hyperion said.

"By then three fourths of our wraiths will be gone," Arnabis said, "valkyries don't have the precision required to target key parts of capital ships, they will act as the distraction for our wraiths. Do not question my tactics."

The orders are registered and valkyries flew out of the Hyperion and Juggernaut. The juggernaut followed suit with the Hyperion and also began charging fifty of its one hundred twenty batteries to prepare for prolonged fire.

"How much longer until reinforcements arrive?" Arnabis asked.

"Now," one of the officers answered.


End file.
